


Dragon's Prayer

by WonderMint



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Angst, Anthropomorphic, Body Horror, Explicit Sexual Content, Fictional Religion & Theology, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Religious Guilt, Sad Boys in Snow, Species Dysphoria, Specific Warrior of Light, Suicide Attempt, Torture, Transformation, Violence, Wings, Yaoi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-11
Updated: 2016-04-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 13:18:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5929816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WonderMint/pseuds/WonderMint
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ser Aymeric has become what he hates. It's up to his friends to show him that hope is not lost, and that his soul is stronger than his fears.</p><p>Spoilers through Heavensward 3.0 storyline.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prayer for Mercy

**Author's Note:**

> This story is going to be long and it's going to be painful. You've been warned.
> 
> Regarding the Warrior of Light: he plays a prominent enough role in this story that I can't leave him ambiguous. So, as in an unpublished story that you will see Someday (TM), I invoke a specific version of him based on the Hyur in the opening cutscenes. #notmywarrioroflight #notmyshepard #sorrynotsorry
> 
>  **Spoiler warnings** : This will spoil at least through the completion of the 3.0 storyline pretty much right off the bat. Likely further, as it goes on.
> 
>  **Trigger warnings** : This is going to be much darker than before. If you are disturbed by talk of suicide, this is not the story for you. I mean it. Likewise there's quite a bit of blood and violence, and while I will never write rape, if you are sensitive you may be disturbed at some implications regardless, at least in this prologue. Religion plays a large part in this story, and whether you are for or against the religions upon which this imaginary faith is based, you may find some content objectionable. Additional trigger warnings for emitophobia, on occasion.

It felt as if it took bells. But eventually, Ser Aymeric awoke to the squeal of wagon-wheels against stone. And he wept.

 

He hurt. His entire body ached, as if some great creature had picked him up and plucked him like a chicken for a stew, pulling at his arms and legs until his joints popped free and his muscles stretched like broken strings. He bled. There were gaping wounds on his back, and stinging cold gnawed at his wrists where they had rubbed raw against the chains that bound him to the floor of the wagon, tearing through his gloves and his skin alike. Flakes of dried blood covered his face and stuck to his hair. Much of it was his, along with the throbbing pain in his tongue. That wound, he had caused deliberately. That pain belonged to him.

 

The sting of failure.

 

It was cold. Judging from the moist chill of the air and the occasional slide of the jittering wagon, he was still in Coerthas. His captors apparently didn't want him freezing to death. A blanket was wrapped tight around his torso, lashed to him with solid ropes that cut into his back and reminded him of the fresh wounds there. Of the abomination they'd wrought upon him, of the abomination he'd become.

 

Silently, he turned his mind away from his back, from his despair, and focused on his tongue. On the dull throb there, the ache in his mouth, held still and damp by the rag that had been forced into his mouth and tied in place. A gag to keep him from exercising his last act of freedom. A barrier to keep him from biting his tongue clean off and choking on his own blood, so that he may die, and enter willingly into damnation.

 

He worked his jaw feebly against the restraint, trying in vain to chew apart the gag and succeeding only in igniting the pain in his mouth. And he wept. Because he had no hope anymore. Not even for death.

 

_His gaol had been lined with stone and rime, one of the fallen Vigils of eld, claimed by Dravania and left to rot. Once, the walls had been lit with torches and the hale cheers of Ishgard's strongest knights. Now, he was the only knight within its keep. In a place like this, Ser Yu_ _hel_ _meric had met his death, condemning every_ _man under_ _his command to starvation and madness._

 

_Ser Aymeric had thought that he would only die there. But instead, he lost his soul._

 

_He had been defiant to the last. It mattered not that the Lord Commander had been captured by heretics. He would not betray his people. No secrets would pass his lips. He would not bow to any torture, nor_ _tremble at_ _incantations or heresies. The Fury protected him, and he did not fear a return to her embrace. Death was not a thing to fear, nor pain, nor the mummery of unholy magic. He would stand strong through their torture and give no ground. He would not let a single word pass his lips, not a man would he sacrifice._

 

_When the heretics had at last fetched him from his stinking cell, binding him into a chair of weathered oak, split and splintered by the slow work of water and ice, he had felt no fear._

 

_He had been grievously wrong._

 

The journey was a torture as well, though of a different sort. It might have been easier to know that there was some purpose behind it, some precisely calculated ponze of flesh that some cruel eye had wished to extract. Instead there was no purpose save transportation. He was jostled and cajoled with no care for the bruises he received and the wounds that were worsened. The chains that cut into his wrists did so with no malice, merely  brutal  efficiency. Ultimately, his captors did not care that he suffered now. They had already inflicted their brand upon him, and now, thought only how they might use him.

 

The thought made bile rise in his throat, a violent churning of his stomach that was only aided by the slosh of the wagon beneath him. He rolled slightly on the rough wood floor, and though he clenched his eyes tightly shut, he did not resist the urge to vomit. Rather he surrendered to it, attempted to feed the reaction, thinking of all of the horrible things he could to induce himself to retch.

 

It would have been a terrible way to die,  breathing and choking on his own acid,  but it would have been pittance compared to the suffering for which he was likely destined, after death. He could only hope that the Fury would see his resolve, and take pity. Suicide was a mortal sin. But it was much less terrible than  what had already befallen him, and that which he now hoped, desperately, to avoid.

 

But it was not enough. As when he had bitten halfway through his tongue, his body rebelled, and self-preservation took over. Try as he might to think of corpses festering with maggots, of slavering jaws of dragons, of dung-heaps crawling with flies,  of the horror he had  endured not bells before  or the slavery he now faced ,  he could not force his stomach to empty itself.

 

His mind was holy. It was his body that would not submit to  Halone's gracious will. And without his hands and  a blade keener than his own fear, he could not do the righteous thing. He could not die.

 

_He had thought at first that Iceheart herself had come to gloat, but_ _as he later learned, it was not she_ _. The woman before him was a Hyur, raven-haired and twisted with malice. Her sneer was not one of quiet power, but of jealous zeal. She was not merely dangerous. She was deranged._

 

_Still, he was not afraid. Because the worst he believed she could inflict upon him was death._

 

_“Step forward, my most loyal,” she had said. From within the shadows, three men stepped forth, kneeling before her. Aymeric thought perhaps that he recognized them as the men who had taken him captive, wrestled him to the ground and knocked him senseless when he had fallen from his chocobo. They wore the armor of his own country, a mockery of patriotism and servitude. He willed himself to believe that they had prized it from the fallen, rather than having taken it with them when they had sold their souls._

 

_The woman raised her hands high, delivering a foul benediction, dripping with chill reverence. “For your service to our masters, you have been judged worthy of the sweetest reward. Blood from our masters, blood to make you pure. Blessed blood granted only to they who prove themselves, from which you might rise again fit to look upon those we serve.”_

 

_A nearby table had held four goblets, and she took one in her hand. Gently, cradling it as an object most precious, holding it aloft with an expression of beatific reverence. Then she gave it to the first man, and he lifted the cup to his lips and drank._

 

_She turned from him and held a second goblet aloft, carrying it back to the soldiers as if she bore an ark from the heavens, laden with gifts._

 

_The first soldier fell to the ground, and clutched his breast in pain. No-one payed him any mind._

 

_“Drink, my worthy companions, drink that thine souls may be uplifted, yea, unto the heavens themselves.” And she handed over the second goblet to the heretic who still knelt in the middle of the group. He drank immediately, thirstily, as if he had wandered Thanalan for years without a drop of water._

 

_The chill maiden turned from them again, and as she did so, the second man fell to the ground, the goblet clattering forgotten to the floor and rolling across the stone. The man beside him grunted and shrieked, a constricted sound as if he were fighting with himself. As though he struggled to remain in command of his voice and his senses._

 

_“By these gifts, oh masters, we know that we are blessed. By these gifts, oh masters, we purify our souls and burn away our bodies. By these gifts, oh masters, we become worthy to look upon ye and worship, with our tongues, with our claws, with teeth like steel and wings that stretch to the sky. By these gifts, oh masters, we are_ _remade in thine_ _image,_ _and we rejoice_ _.”_

 

_The final goblet was placed into trembling hands, and like the others, he too drank. He placed the goblet down with the calm finality of a man who was ready to die. But like the others, he did not die._

 

_Like the others, he became a dragon._

 

_Aymeric had heard tales. Tales of horror, tales thought too terrible and too fantastical to be true. Tales told to children who did not attend their eighth-day lessons, or girls who looked over-long in the direction of a handsome youth. Tales of men who had given their souls to sin and willingly taken the form of dragons. Tales of the blood that would tear apart their limbs and remake them, screaming, into beasts._

 

_Aymeric now knew them true, because he heard their screams, and saw their anguish made real. He saw them writhe upon the ground and tear their armor, their clothes, and then their own pudgy skin until only leather and scales gleamed with their blood. And when their screams had stopped, there stood now only three hulking aevis instead of men. Unholy beasts where once had stood Elezen._

 

_They licked flesh and blood from their teeth with tongues grown long and sickly, and they screeched, and in that moment Aymeric knew fear._

 

_Still, he did not believe that their unholy magic could affect him. His prayers ran_ _purifying_ _circles through his mind, protecting him, dedicating his mind and his body to the Goddess. They could only mortify his flesh. They could not truly harm him. Soon he would_ _look upon_ _the face of the Fury and he would weep tears of everlasting joy._

 

He prayed now, too. But it was a different kind of prayer, a prayer for death, for the hopeless, for one who knew he did not deserve mercy.

 

But somehow, his prayer was answered all the same.

 

A loud crash rocked the wagon, tossing it sideways and sending Aymeric rolling into the far wall. The chains,  still anchored against the floor, twisted his wrists and constricted his blood-flow dangerously. On any other day, he might have feared losing his hands. Now, he merely looked to the light streaming in above the door, and prayed with all his might.

 

There were voices outside. Shouts, enthusiastic and loud, reverberating as if against a cliff-side or within a cave. Indistinct but joyful. Full of life. Full of hope.

 

The day before, he might have hoped that his suffering was over. He might have wished for rescue, against all odds. Stranger things had happened, in the cold cliffs of Coerthas. Light-blessed heroes roamed the land, empowered by the Fury to wreak great miracles. It was not impossible that they had come for him now, that he had been saved from a fate worse than death and damnation combined.

 

Now, hope did fill his breast. But it was not rescue he prayed for. It was the release of death. The kiss of steel. A friend to bestow upon him mercy, that he might see the eyes of Halone for himself and feel no more regret.

 

_He had thought, perhaps, that the fourth goblet was intended for the fell priestess. But there had been another possibility. She dismissed her thralls, now grown beastly and long of tooth, to feast on carrion and maggots. And then she lifted the fourth goblet in her small white hands, and carried it to him._

 

_Aymeric tried very hard to remain impassive. But he could not keep his tongue still, nor hide the tremor in his voice. “That will not harm me, witch,” he said, and spit upon her as she stood over him with a mocking smile. But he did not say it to her. He said it to hear it in his own ears. Because he knew that she would not attempt it if she did not believe it would work._

 

_His own belief was strong. But so was hers._

 

_“Oh but it will, my lovely,” she had said, the sweetness of a maiden in love though her teeth flashed with poison and malice. “You are not worthy to receive this gift, but receive it you shall, all the same. We will burn your unrepentant heart until the rot and wickedness is but smoke on the wind, and all that shall remain will be a glory unto our lords.” And her eyes had gleamed, faith and madness, a glee that terrified him for the certainty with which she anticipated his pain._

 

_His love for his_ _G_ _oddess never wavered. But for a bright, still moment, his faith did. Like the_ _roll of a drum_ _, low and sonorous,_ _vibrating beneath the reach of hearing and making seconds expand to fill minutes at a time. He believed that_ _Halone_ _was just and true. But for a moment, his lungs emptied and he choked on nothing at all, because he was not certain he was worthy of her protection._

 

_And then the moment passed, and he hardened his own spirit like a dagger of purest hardsilver. “You may kill me, but you will never harm me, worm. Halone is my refuge.” And he closed his eyes to the woman who sneered at him with coiling rage. He closed them to all the world, because it was naught but a vale of illusions and deceit._

 

_He had expected her to strike him. But she had only laughed._

 

Aymeric tried to still the fluttering of his heart, the gasping of his breath. It only hurt him more to strive to inhale, and with luck his travail would be over soon. He closed his eyes and focused on the image of his goddess. He had thought her merely just, before. He had looked upon the statues and worshiped in the temple of his heart for many years, but he had never noticed. When he pictured her now, in his mind's eye, he could see that her face had always shone with mercy and love.

 

He felt it, in that moment. Peace. The sure knowledge that death was coming, and that this time, his soul would be spared.

 

And then a tremor passed through him, a long rippling shudder like a tickle or a chill. But it was warm and soothing, like a hot bath to rest his aching limbs. It was a familiar feeling, like holding the hand of a friend long-gone.

 

He was being healed. Not by the Fury, though her mercy was surely at work. Instead he opened his eyes again to regard his rescuer, and furrowed his brows in confusion. He had not been found by man or beast, but by a glowing light.

 

The voices without his prison still rang, muted and indistinct but loud with vigor. The door was still barred solidly shut. Only a wide gap remained above the ill-fitting door, and through it was seeping a strange glowing figure. Small, green and yellowish, alight with the quickness of a mouse and the grace of a dancing willow. It squeezed its way into the wain and then wafted towards him on fluttering wings, finally coming to rest on Aymeric's shoulder where it peered down at him with the face of a minute, beautiful child.

 

The creature lifted a hand and fluttered its wide butterfly wings, and with a sparkle of shimmering light, he again felt a surge of healing magic. The ache in his tongue ebbed away, his jaw no longer quite so sore.

 

“Dammit!” he heard from without the wagon, closer, more defined. “I lost Fairy again.” Indistinct laughter followed, and a chorus of friendly jeers.

 

The tiny maiden on Aymeric's shoulder turned away from him and walked along his side, steps lilting as if she might break into a dance at any moment. As she passed, craning her neck toward his back, another burst of light and fine particles of shimmering air spread out over his prone form. The searing, stringing pain of his back ceased, like the snuffing of a candle, only a wispy smoky soreness to remind him of its presence.

 

If only she could truly have healed his wound.

 

The voices outside the wagon played back and forth, arguing or cajoling. One or two of the voices seemed familiar. He knew now, it was no vain hope. His friends had come for him, he would be saved.

 

The difficult part would be to persuade them to help.

 

_Ser Aymeric was secure in his faith, but that did not mean he would tempt the wrath of his Goddess. He would not suffer his lips to be sullied with their filth. He would not drink, though it was well evident that they believed they could force it down his throat._

 

_He was bound too securely to thrash. The men at his side, swords drawn at the ready, were hardly needed. One did step forward, however, anchoring a hand in his hair and jerking his head against the solid oak at his back. Though he wiggled, he was weak, and he could not stop the witch from holding the goblet to his lips. She spilled only a few drops to sizzle against the front of his armor, evaporating with a whiff of bile and sulfur as if the foul brew could not bear contact with his sanctified body. But he would not open his mouth, he would only stare at her with eyes the blue of the ice that decorated the vast, echoing hall. He would defy her to the last, until the only thing she could do was commend him to the Fury's embrace._

 

_But she just smiled, that simpering, worm-rotten, unholy smile. “Hold his nose,” she said_ _tartly_ _, and the soldier behind him had complied, cutting off all access to air._

 

_Aymeric was well aware that he could not suffocate himself of his own free will. But he damn well tried._

 

“There she is, in the wagon. See the light?” said a familiar voice. A man's voice, possessed of strength and virtue, but light and airy. Untroubled by sorrow, too strong to let the cares of the world mar his spirit. “Shall we see what the heretics were carting along? My bet's on crystals again.”

 

“Captives,” said another voice, clipped, cool, and commanding despite the evident youth of the speaker. “Souls for tempering. Thank the Matron we arrived in time to save them.” Aymeric knew the speakers well. The Fury had delivered to him precisely those he needed most.

 

A loud concussion rocked the wain and Aymeric felt it in his bones, rattling down the chains that still constricted his wrists to numbness as he lay miserably on his side. A moment ago the shock would have made him wince, made him grit his teeth and choke on his gasps of pain. But a small creature now rested on his hip, casting her yellow light around him like a beacon of hope, and now it was but a small thing to suffer, waiting for rescue.

 

“What makes you so sure?” asked the first man, interest born of bemusement rather than care, clearly standing directly before the door. Another loud bang rang out, metal on metal on wood on metal, rattling through every surface.

 

The younger answered quietly enough that Aymeric could only have heard him because he, too, was mere fulms away. “Summoned creatures survive on aether, but they don't crave crystals like primals do. The fae is in there to heal. I don't understand how it carries a will of its own, however. Pray, might I examine--”

 

Another loud shock rang through the wagon, echoing loud in Aymeric's ears and making him wish, just for a moment, that the abuse would simply stop. Soon, though. He needed only wait a little longer.

 

It was true. Because with a tired, whinging creak, the door fell open. Aymeric was momentarily blinded, the light pouring in and overwhelming the dim shining of the creature at his side so thoroughly that it might have been the very grace of Halone. And in a way it was, because his rescuers stood basking within it, outlined in glory like the faded memories of the missing Warriors of Light, ready and waiting to deliver him from his suffering.

 

“Well,” said the Warrior of Light himself, “looks like you were right.” As the light faded to manageable levels and his eyes adjusted, the knight could make out a great axe being hefted to sit on the man's shoulder, perched like a loyal falcon.

 

“Aymeric,” said the other voice, cracking with the wonder of the moment. “It's you. You're alive!” And Alphinaud grinned at him, the pure smile of a youth not quite a man, not quite broken by the cruelty of the world though he had lived through his fair share of it.

 

The broken knight could only hope that he would not be the final blow to fell the boy's spirit.

 

_To his shame, he had broken quickly. The sour air that filled his lungs was not enough, and soon, it pained him merely to hold. It pressed on his ribs and made his chest convulse, trying vainly to breathe though he would not allow his mouth to open._ _He needed not only to suck breath in, but to expel the last._

 

_It burned to escape him. It roiled in his lungs like a serpent, pushing and thrashing and twitching in pain. And at last he expelled his breath, a quick huff of air over lips parted minutely, blowing a froth of crimson that rebounded across his face and made his skin crawl with insult, with fire and disgust._

 

_The woman only narrowed her sharp green eyes, her narrow lips turned up in victory. Though he had not taken a drop, he had not won. His lungs were merely empty now. And the burning changed in character, became an aching maw, an emptiness, the hollow space where his soul should have shined but was now only a black space bereft of hope. And again his chest convulsed and heaved, and again his body fought his iron will. He clenched his eyes and struggled against the hand that held him, but it was not enough._

 

_He had opened his mouth without even knowing that he had done it. And he tasted blood._

 

_He inhaled then, a gasping breath of a man who would preferred to have died, inhaled not merely air but the fetid fluid at his lips. It burned his tongue and his lungs both, catching in his trachea and warring with the life-giving air. The witch had cackled with glee then, forcing her hand over his mouth and sealing it shut. He could have tried to bite her and likely succeeded. But his body was too focused on another struggle. For while he had a small amount of air, he also had drunk of the foul potion. The majority of the mouthful had not passed beyond his throat._

 

_But some had. He could feel it, in his stomach, and even clinging wetly to his lungs. He longed to cough, to spit, to expel. He managed to twist his head to the side and force the_ _blood_ _from his mouth, but she merely_ _laughed, filling the air with a sharp cracking sound like ice grown heavy and shattering upon the ground._

 

_He could feel it within him. He could feel it. It was sick and wrong and unholy and disgusting, but he could feel it working._

 

_The Fury would not protect him. He had failed to resist damnation. His body was sullied. He could feel it as surely as he could feel the breath that finally filled his lungs._

 

Alphinaud had wasted no time in crawling into the wain, leaping onto the ramp made by the open door with uncharacteristic speed. The fairy at his side had vanished, but it was alright. His saviors were here, a whole cluster of them milling about outside the wagon and conferring in joyful voices. Hikari didn't join them, leaning silently against the frame of the door in his barbarian's furs and his roguish grin, smiling at Aymeric like he'd won the weekly Cactpot.

 

After a moment and a few muffled curses, Alphinaud managed to loosen the gag, and Aymeric spat out the filthy rag that had dulled his taste and numbed his jaw. He tried to make his tongue form words but all he could emit was a rough groan of pain and relief both.

 

“It's alright, we're here,” said Alphinaud tenderly. Aymeric wished that he would stop smiling, but he returned the expression anyway, if sadly. “Hikari, we have need of your locksmith's pick,” and he indicated the chains that still stretched tight, holding the knight's wrists over his head.

 

The warrior hefted his axe once more, and too late Aymeric realized he had wasted an opportunity. The axe swung down and the chains snapped, and blood immediately flowed into his wrists, making them throb joyfully at their temporary freedom.

 

No. He couldn't allow them to believe. It would already hurt them too much.

 

He found his voice. It was an aching thing, frail, as battered as his soul and nearly as lost. But he found it and put it to use. “Alphinaud, you must listen to me,” he said. The boy was fussing with the cruel ropes that bound the huge blanket that surrounded him, but looked back to his face immediately. Perhaps he had picked up the dire gravity of his thoughts, even though his voice was not strong enough to convey his anguish properly. The youth was perceptive like that. Perceptive enough to still his hands and blink at him solemnly from beneath the white hair under which he hid his keen intelligence.

 

“I need you to kill me,” said Aymeric, feeling the pain he would cause the other man as keenly as if it were his own. “Now, without delay. Burn mine body, burn the wagon, leave no evidence of mine passing. Tell no-one, not a soul. The Inquisitors must never know.”

 

Alphinaud was silent, though he had heard the knight's words. His ashen skin conveyed his understanding, as did his eyes wide with confusion.

 

“Bullshit,” said Hikari. “You're safe now, and you're coming home if I have to break your legs and drag you there.” His smile had melted, his gaze turned fierce, the angular lines of his fair Midlander face turned hard and determined. It was not unlike the face that his enemies saw, right before they were felled by the Warrior of Light. But Hikari withheld that mercy from him, stubborn and kind to the last.

 

Finally Alphinaud found his own voice, unsteady but smooth enough to pass, to convey that he would not be convinced. “You are delirious,” he said. “You have not been tempered. We've arrived in time. If it were truly too late, you would not even think to ask.”

 

“I know,” said Aymeric, and still he wept, softly, silently, though he could no longer tell if they were tears of hope or despair. “And thus mine soul is saved. But in order to avoid damnation, you must needs allow me to die here. It is the only way, please. _Please, have mercy on me_.” And the tears would not stop. They could not stop until his heart ceased to beat.

 

Alphinaud turned away from him, kneeling by his side but still for a moment, unable to shake away the plea. Hikari too was silent, stepping away from the wain, leaving the two of them alone to contemplate the sins they had committed, had yet to commit, and weigh the stains on their own souls.

 

Finally the youth produced a dagger from his boot and cut the ropes at his back. “You are a fool if you think I could ever do any such thing,” he said, and Aymeric knew from the steel in his voice that he truly meant it.

 

He perhaps could have struggled, gone for a weapon, or even shrank away from the eyes of his friends, too pure-hearted to see what he had become or understand the necessity of what they must do. But he hadn't the will to fight any longer. So he lay still and broken as Alphinaud unwrapped him from the blanket that hid his shame. And only his tears made comment when the young man saw the truth.

 

_It must have been but a few drops. But it affected him as surely_ _as the entire benighted chalice, making his heart beat so loudly that he thought it would burst through his chest and coat the halls with his blood. He wished that it would, but he could not be so lucky. Because his eyes grew dim and unfocused, and a fire burned in his belly, and his skin seemed to crawl as though therein nested a thousand centipedes._

 

_The witch stepped away from him, but it didn't matter. He had ceased to care for her or her wicked, bone-white grins. The ropes that bound him were cut, and he was shoved to the floor, to kneel as if in supplication._

 

_And it was a good thing, because it was the perfect position from which to pray. To beg his Goddess for forgiveness and strength, for purity and mercy. With all his might, he focused._

 

_A streak of pain flashed through him, solid and cold like a piercing blade through his gut. He wanted to scream but he hadn't the strength. He merely collapsed to the ground and gurgled in pain. But still he focused, on the shining face of his Goddess, on his love for her and his faith in her justice, no matter how cruel._

 

_He thought he could hear words. The heretic priestess was speaking again, her words a cup of poison that he would not drink. He did not listen to her. He listened only to the song of Halone, the song in his heart. He tried to hum a hymn of devotion, but his tongue would not carry the tune through his pain. So he sang inside his mind, and ignored the twisting of muscle and crack of bone, cared not for the tearing of his skin._

 

_Hands seemed to touch him, and he was confused for a moment, thinking perhaps they delivered him from evil. But though they did not harm him further, they did not touch with kindness. They cut at his clothing, pulling apart his armor, leaving him exposed to the heathen woman's eyes. Perhaps she wished to view his shame. But he did not give her the satisfaction. In the cathedral of his own mind, he focused on who he was. On the man who served the Fury with every last breath, and who loved his people more than he loved his own life._

 

_Surprisingly, the pain had lessened with the cooling of his skin, like ice on a bruise. His skin still crawled, but the pressure of cloth and metal no longer cut against it as it moved. But he did not think it a mercy._

 

_He did not have time. Because a splitting pain rent across his back, as if Rhalgr had reached from the heavens and plucked his spine straight out. A wet, sticky sound, the tearing of flesh and splatter of blood, and Aymeric_ _was sure for a moment that he had been turned inside-out._ _The pain flashed red in his vision, making him waver for a moment, floundering on the floor and able to feel or contemplate nothing but agony, as if he were a single raw nerve plucked like a harp._ _He opened his mouth to scream, and found his voice no longer sounded like his own. It was almost a roar or a howl, a primal, animalistic sound. As though he were no longer a man, but an unholy beast_

 

_Still, heaving and retching on nothing, he returned to the sacred sanctuary within his soul. He would not allow himself to be lost, though his body be impure. He focused, eyes shut tight against the vale of sorrow, as if the only thing that had ever mattered was his own will. He was Ser Aymeric, champion of the Fury's will, bastard son of the Archbishop, of the line of King Thordan himself. He would not be swayed by unholy magic. Halone would guard his soul and keep him true, guard him until death could release him._

 

_Eventually, he realized, it was over. And when he opened his eyes, he beheld his own hands._

 

_They were his. Elezen hands, pale skin hardly touched by sun as he labored in the chilly North, though they were scarred and calloused by war and hardship. And for a frightful moment he almost believed that he had survived unscathed._

 

_But then he unclenched his hands, released their white-knuckled grip that had drawn blood from his palms to flow out around his wrists. And he saw that his_ _fingers_ _had grown into_ _black-tipped_ _claws, and he was no longer entirely himself._

 

_“Beautiful,” said the witch. “Amazing. Glorious. And... and...” and her words had failed her then, her thoughts leaping away from her so far that not even her expansive voice could contain them. Hands grabbed at his shoulders,_ _rough and insistent_ _. He was limp like a child's doll, too tired and weary to lift a finger in his own defense. The heretics held his arms and made him kneel once again, not fully naked but near enough that he'd have feared for a true maiden's virtue. The wicked woman who merely impersonated one clearly hadn't any herself. She was looking him over like an aevis might look at a corpse, bloated and half-gone to rot._

 

_He looked behind him, with difficulty, to see what had become of his body. And from his shoulders had sprouted huge leathern wings. Not the scaly, chitinous abominations of an aevis, but long delicate things, finely-boned. The wings of a wyvern, a true dragon. The sort of creature_ _for which_ _a knight could earn_ _several months_ _pay_ _by_ _slaying merely one._

 

_And there. His trousers had survived, but not intact. Because he now had a long tail, longer than his legs, coiled with muscle, thick and scaly. Black as his wings. As his pointed claws. As the terror in his heart._

 

_The rest of him had seemed to remain Elezen, more or less. The Fury had protected him from a portion of the transformation. Perhaps by drinking only a little, he had retained a piece of himself._

 

_“We will make of you a gift to the Lady Iceheart. Yes, yes, a fine gift. We shall deliver you unto Saint Shiva and dedicate you to her service. Your will is strong, so strong, and your blood is pure.”_

 

_Through the horror, a memory tugged at him. Though it seemed unlikely that his fate could worsen, something about her threat chilled him to the bone. What was it that Alphinaud had said? That Shiva could be summoned like any other primal? The people of his country cared little for such dangers, too concerned with the war to regard any other difficulty as anything but inconvenience. But he had heard of Garuda, grim and terrible. He had heard that primals could temper mortals to their will, be they beasts or men._

 

_If Shiva was a primal, then he could be tempered._

 

_Aymeric was truly afraid, then. Because currently he was in possession of his own mind,_ _and possibly,_ _his soul. If he died now, Halone might have mercy on him, might deliver him from the stain of his body._ _But if he were tempered, everything that remained of him would be gone. He would be a servant of Dravania, his body put to whatever foul purpose they might imagine. He would fight and murder his own people, without an onze of remorse. He would blaspheme his Goddess's name with every breath he took, because he would no longer have a soul at all._

 

_He would, in short, be lucky merely to be damned._

 

_The woman turned her head to the side, looking at him possessively, as if he were a chocobo to trade on the market. “Yes,” she said. “I've heard whispers about you. That you have the cursed king's blood in your veins. Who knew it could be so pure, though. I wonder. Could we use that blood? You would make a fine king yourself. Yes, very fine indeed.”_

 

_Aymeric didn't need to hear more._

 

_Suicide was a mortal sin. It was enough to condemn his soul. But the fate he faced was worse than mere damnation, and the Fury was just. If he were to willingly throw himself upon her mercy, surely she would not turn him away. If she did, he could at least bear an eternity in torment easy in the knowledge that he had avoided losing the last vestiges of his soul as a mindless slave to evil and sin._

 

_He took a precious few seconds to calm himself, turning once again the image of Halone, pure and unsullied in his mind._

 

_And quickly, without mercy, he bit his tongue as hard as he could._

 

_He had thought he could bear the pain, having come through so much already. But being self-inflicted, he had been as helpless to finish the job as he had been to starve himself of air. His mouth filled with blood and heat and wincing, brassy pain, but it had not been enough. He could not choke on his own tongue or breathe the blood until he drowned. He merely coughed and spit vivid red, drawing the woman's attention to his defiance._

 

_“Do not allow him to harm himself,” the witch hissed in alarm. And a dull thud in the back of his skull rang, hollow, hopeless, the last sound he heard before he fell unconscious to the floor._

 

Alphinaud now saw what Aymeric had seen bells before. The blood had dried, though it still clung to his face and back, staining the rough brown blanket that had kept him warm and still. His clothing had largely been shredded or reduced to tatters, though his trousers and boots remained. But though his chest and arms seemed normal enough, skin pale but marked by scars of honor, it was impossible to miss the wings that unfurled from his back. They were huge, as long as his body even folded, and black as sin and death. And when the blanket had been unfurled he had twitched them wider unconsciously, stretching out and knocking the rough hemp aside to let his blood flow unimpeded. They were not merely the wings torn from the back of some monstrous wyvern. They were his, alive, feeling pain when they were constricted and feeling luxuriously free now that the ropes had been severed.

 

“Matron's teats, what happened?” said the younger man, blinking with astonishment and unable to believe his eyes.

 

Aymeric had been corrupted, defiled, broken. But he was still a knight, with a warrior's instinct. And so as the younger Elezen knelt by his side, he took advantage of his indecision and pounced. With energy he had not known he possessed, he grabbed the boy and wrested away his dagger. Alphinaud hardly struggled, too shocked and afraid, not knowing what to make of an attack from a man he had counted as an ally.

 

The knight wished, just for a moment, that he had had the time to count him as a friend. He sagged back against the floor, backing up and putting as much distance between them as he could manage with strength dulled by hunger and a broken spirit. “It isn't your fault,” he said softly as he held the dagger to his own throat. With the dispassionate memory of a man who killed for a living, he traced its tip to the root of his jaw, where his blood flowed warm and strong. “Remember, burn everything, or they shall damn me even after I die.”

 

“No! Don't you dare!” shouted Alphinaud, reaching out a hand but too afraid to do more. It was too late. Aymeric smiled, finally, a true smile through the tears. And he prepared himself to die.

 

And then he felt the familiar tug of magic on his body. And this time the spell did not heal.

 

He was asleep before he hit the floor of the wagon, knife dropped harmlessly to his side.


	2. Prayer for Succor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Henotheism** (Greek henas theos “one god”) is the belief in and worship of a single god while accepting the existence or possible existence of other deities that may also be served. The term was originally coined by Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (1775-1854) to depict early stages of monothism.
> 
> -Wikipedia

This time when Aymeric struggled awake, his head was full of cotton and his mouth no longer hurt. There was surprisingly little pain, in fact, though much soreness in his back and... other places, too new to feel properly his. But that seemed to have been all that had changed, because he was still a prisoner.

 

It was simply that this time, his gaolers called themselves friends.

 

He tried to move little and speak less, swallowing the disappointment that had tried to leak from his breast like a squeaky hinge. Slowly he opened his eyes a fraction, covertly taking in his surroundings.

 

He lay on his stomach upon a soft bed, the first comfortable surface with which he'd had contact for at least a week. His arms were stretched over his head as before, though now a cool silk pillow cradled his cheek. He thought he felt soft binding on his wrists, though he dared not lift his head to look, nor pull. If he were bound, there would be noise, and he wished to remain unremarked. Instead he took stock of what was immediately in view, which was a small room of cut stone, warmly lit. The stones were unfamiliar, brownish in color rather than the gray of Ishgard, cut sharply and placed with an eye to appearance rather than structure. Aymeric was no builder, but having grown up among stone it seemed to him like chaos, like the man who had built this room was of an alien mind. Mayhap it was so, because this place did not feel like home at all.

 

Two people were in the room with him, and once he was certain they hadn't noticed his waking, he opened his eyes further to regard them. One was familiar, and his heart leapt to see him. Alphinaud had elected to remain by his side even after the knight-turned-dragon had betrayed him. Sound asleep, it seemed. He lay in the corner of the room, a small, curled form, seemingly swallowed up by the plush chair into which he was nestled. He was dressed just as Aymeric had seen him last, his strange blue tunic and pale gloves, much of his white hair pulled into a long narrow braid behind him. He held a rich red blanket in his lap with one trailing hand, but like his youth, he did not hold it too close. Most of it had been shoved to the floor and covered only his legs. At rest, his face seemed nearly angelic, no longer the shrewd trader of words but an innocent. Like the fae that had healed his wounds. Small, fine of features, possessed of goodness and care.

 

He knew, because even in sleep, trouble marred his expression. And it had been Aymeric who had caused that distress, and disturbed even the pure land of his dreams.

 

The other person was unknown to him, though he should not have thought her a threat. A Miqo'te woman sat in another chair, near Alphinaud but in her own little world. She was reading from a tome that could have made the Steps of Faith look young, her strange cat-like eyes shrewd and hawkish in their intensity. Her hair was a warm white, pulled into two short pigtails and adorned with silver. Two red whisker-like markings adorned each side of her face. A large brass device of some kind rested on her chest, slung around her neck like a pair of bizarre opera glasses. In addition to her blue leggings, she wore a loose-fitting white tunic with long, wide sleeves, giving the odd impression that everything about her was clean and pure.

 

He did not understand why, but something about the way she moved as she turned the page made her seem different than the few Miqo'te he had thus encountered. There were adventurers, servants, back-alley whores and labor for hire from every corner of the land, but never had he met one that seemed so... still. Like a pond along which no wind blew, and which was so deep that even the fish beneath its depths could not disturb its quiet surface.

 

After a few moments of indecision, thinking himself safe enough, Aymeric chanced a look up. The worn tatters of his gloves had been cut away, blood and filth washed clean by some kind hand. But as he suspected, he was once again bound firmly. First in soft bandages, and second in chains. Wide iron manacles bound his wrists, to each-other first and then by a second chain to a sturdy ring that had been driven into the wall above the bed. He had traded one captivity for another, and though he should have felt better for it, he did not. He had hoped for rescue, it was true. But he had also hoped for the release of death, and it seemed that his friends wished to deny him his heart's desire.

 

“Our guest is awake,” said a soft voice. It was clearly a woman's, and lilted with a touch of feminine charm, but Aymeric would not have quite called the speaker a _lady_. He looked back to see the woman set her book on the low tea table with a respectful touch, then stand to approach him slowly. Not a movement seemed to be wasted, but nor was it rushed.

 

The knight could have asked a dozen questions, but only one mattered just now. Suddenly he felt his chains keenly, and he pulled on them as if by doing so he could rip them from the wall. He was too weak, the stone too strong, though at least the bandages beneath his shackles protected him from further injury. But he growled nonetheless, snarling like a baited bear. “Who knows?! Whom did you tell?”

 

The maiden expressed her surprise faster than Aymeric could fully mark, flinching quickly and then turning her head to the side, regarding him with her hand on her cheek. Up close, he could see that her considering eyes were a pale blue, a bit like his own but larger, more feral in form. But though her pupils were sliced thin like a coeurl's claw, there was not a hint of anger there. She merely saw, thought, took it into the sheltered harbor of her mind with no need to react or comment.

 

In the other chair, Alphinaud stirred, and eyes the color of the calmest sea blinked to regard him with concern.

 

Finally the maiden spoke, drawing her leafy wand but keeping her stance relaxed, as though she had never once thought of it as a weapon. “You are among friends,” she said. “My name is Y'shtola. We have brought you to a place where your countrymen cannot reach. Few know of your malady. Those that do, you may trust to the end of the age.” And then she sat on his bedside, and Aymeric was convinced not to bite only by the lightness of her touch as she tipped up his chin and looked over his face. Not critically, but professionally, as though nothing she saw could sway her to feeling.

 

“Forgive me,” spoke the younger man, having approached but standing a respectful distance from the bed. “We feared that you might harm yourself. I hope it is merely a temporary measure.” He leaned against the wall a few fulms away, awkwardly, shielding his body with one arm gripping his other, unable to quite meet Aymeric's eye.

 

What he felt just then was an entirely different sort of pain. But he could not find words that would make it better, because he still held no help himself. So he relaxed and allowed Y'shtola to prod him with her healer's touch, looking into his eyes and then pulling back his lips with her thumb to peer into his mouth as though she expected therein to find an enormous pearl. She narrowed her eyes critically, and he wondered how she knew that he had bitten his tongue, when the wound had been healed and his face no longer itched from the accumulation of blood.

 

Then she released him, as if nothing were amiss. “You feel no pain? I am told that our friends worried over you the whole journey long.” Warmth seemed to creep into her voice as she said it. Adventurers were strange company to keep, but it was difficult not to like Hikari and his rude companions, no matter how fanciful and uncouth.

 

“No,” he replied, the honest truth. He wondered what else he should say. The heretics had fed him but once or twice since he'd been captured, and though they'd given him water, it was hardly enough. But no matter what he said, his friends would not starve him nor let him die of thirst, so it was pointless to speak.

 

Sure enough, the woman reached toward the bedside table and poured a small cup of water from an earthen pitcher. “We must needs be cautious, but water you must have. Drink, or Alphinaud shall be cross, and it is a sight that neither of us should like to see.”

 

The only sign that she had been teasing was the tiniest upward curl of the edges of her lips, but Alphinaud payed her no mind either way. He still seemed barricaded in his silence, locked beneath the wild puff of white hair that fell over his eyes, sealed by an unmoving frown.

 

And he could not contemplate attempting to inhale it and choke, because it simply tasted too wonderful to waste. Like purest silver, or ice crystals turned to wine. Seeing that he accepted it, even through the indignity of letting her tip the cup against his lips as he attempted to hold himself up on his elbows, she repeated the process with a second. “That is all you should have for now. Let us get something else into that stomach, and then you may have more.” She smiled gently, like one might smile at a child who had recently cried. And he forgot that he had wanted to deny himself food, because he was a man who had been starved of kindness.

 

Alphinaud had been watching the exchange, silent as a mouse, and just as cautious. But when the quiet woman had sheathed her wand and walked out the door, he crept closer, still harboring pain in his deep blue eyes. He knelt on the floor rather than sitting on the bed as Y'shtola had done, and though he might have meant it as a respectful gesture, it seemed far more personal when he rested his chin on his arms, folded quietly on the very edge of the bed. Because now they rested at the same height, and neither could conceal their grief.

 

He seemed bereft of speech somehow, even after the woman's well-meaning teasing. And Aymeric found that he could not resist lightening his load, if ever-so slightly. He settled himself back down, resting his head on the pillow and twitching his wings until they had spread enough to feel more relaxed. “You did not tell me that you had a sister,” he said, and he even managed a small, hollow smile.

 

Like a switch had been pulled, Alphinaud was startled into speech. “Then how did you...” but he caught on quickly enough, following the flick of Aymeric's gaze toward the door and the woman who had left them but moments ago. It was not merely their looks that made them seem so alike. It was something in their eyes, the way they looked upon the world and seemed to understand it intimately. Perhaps in a few years, Alphinaud too would seem like a pond undisturbed by wind or fowl, and Aymeric would needs look for a tail to tell them apart.

 

But the diplomat still shewed his youth, turning back with a faint blush that soon evaporated into the air, leaving him with naught but a light scowl. “She is nothing like my sister,” he said petulantly. “Y'shtola has quite a bit of sense, and much more grace.”

 

“Ah,” said Aymeric, pleased to see his friend looking a little more like himself, wit sharpened against friend and foe alike. “You are right, the resemblance is not as strong as I had thought.”

 

Alphinaud took the insult in stride, the sting of it having been dulled by the weighty matters at hand. He frowned only lightly, settling back into his melancholy as if it were the chair in which he'd been sleeping. “You are alive,” he said at last. “We had thought you lost, but you yet live.” His eyes were too pained, too innocent, and Aymeric nearly flinched to see the emotion reflected within them as they searched his face. It was an accusation. A plea for answers.

 

The ex-knight closed his own eyes if only to be spared the light of their suffering. But, it was he who had caused such pain, and he owed the other man answers to all his questions. It would clearly have been better for Alphinaud if he had never been found at all.

 

He hadn't the faintest idea where to begin, the weight of his pain seeming to crush him into silence. So instead he asked his own. “Where is this place?”

 

“Ul'dah,” answered Alphinaud, a touch mechanically. “Or rather Vesper Bay, a small town within the jurisdiction of the Sultanate. This is the Waking Sands, the former headquarters of the Scions. You said you feared the Inquisition. This was the only place I could think to hide you. We did so in secret; few know that it remains occupied, and fewer still walk its halls. Only the Archons, the Anticident, and eight adventurers know that you are here.”

 

Aymeric released a breath he hadn't known he held, and it was loosed as a reedy sigh of relief. It was indeed far from the eye of the See. He could be satisfied with that, for now. He could not be excommunicated if they still thought him merely dead.

 

As to the identities of the people he was trusting with his soul, he would reserve judgment. Hikari he knew he could trust. But aside from Alphinaud and his tame warrior, the Scions and the Braves were merely names to him. It was whispered sometimes that three could keep a secret if two of them were dead. Aymeric personally felt the saying to be overly optimistic, especially in this particular case.

 

Alphinaud watched him for a moment, perhaps expecting some reply or the answers that he so keenly desired. When the knight did not give them, he snaked one hand from the nest of limbs upon which he rested, pinching the dull blue blanket between his fingers. “Why?” he asked at last. And for once, he truly _sounded_ his age, only newly a man and betrayed by the cruelty of the world.

 

And the knight answered, in a long sigh that carried his pain like the coffin in which he would never rest. Or perhaps he would. In Ul'dah, perhaps, he could be put to rest in an unmarked grave, payed respect but no benedictions. It was the best he could hope for, now.

 

“Because every moment that I yet draw breath,” he said at last, “I am an abomination in the sight of my Lady.”

 

Slowly, as if the action was attended by guilt, the other man traced his eyes along the knight's wretched body. He was still half-exposed, no shirt being designed for one of his deformity, unless somewhere a moogle had taken up weaving. It didn't matter as much as he'd have thought, his wings being more than sufficient to hide his back from view, though they still did not move as he expected, like children slow to follow a teacher's command. His trousers had remained, and some thoughtful person had thought to replace his broken belt, meaning he could move without the risk of exposing himself. His tail poured from a large tear, cascading over his legs like a river, wide and strong. With the belt looped over it, he now looked something like a Miqo'te, who merely had an additional hole in every garment.

 

“I suppose I can see why you might think that,” answered Alphinaud momentarily. “Yet you are still yourself. That is quite clear. Whatever goodness and... holiness you once possessed, you are still that man, within, are you not?”

 

It was close enough to truth that Aymeric was momentarily diverted, wondering if that truly mattered. But he was forced to conclude that it did not. “I cannot be so in love with life that I would forget my duty. I have been corrupted. I may be damned already, for all I know.” It was a bitter truth, but one he had slowly grown accustomed to. He had never feared death. It was only a momentary pain, a little fear, and then nothing. It was what lay beyond that concerned him. Either everlasting peace or torture unending.

 

“If I were to truly do the Fury's will, then I would end the life of the miserable creature that stands before her now.” It was a dispassionate appraisal. As if he were speaking of slaying another man, another knight-turned-abomination. Another man under his command—even Lucia, bless her soul—he would have done it without hesitation, merely a quick word of comfort and then the mercy of death. He could do no differently when it was he himself. “The reason I asked _you_ is that suicide is also a grave sin. I did not want to further sully my hands unless necessary. They were planning on... on enslaving me. Even the _certainty_ of damnation was better than that. But I think... I think perhaps in damning myself, I might still be doing her will. And I think I could rest easy, hellfire or no. I think that... I think that my soul is a sacrifice I would willingly make, when the alternative is to live in the displeasure of her gaze.”

 

And then, just like that, he could no longer hold back his fear, his pain, his disgust. Just like that, he buried his face in his pillow to hide his shame, and he wept.

 

He thought perhaps that Alphinaud would object, demand a justification or call him a fool. But the weight on the corner of the bed merely shifted, and he felt a strange, warm touch. Light fingers grasped the edge of his wing, gently pushing it aside so that the younger man could sit on the bed beside his shoulder.

 

Like every feeling gleaned from the great wings and sickly tail, it felt like sensations not his own, touches and feeling masquerading as his, his own body participating in some elaborate lie. But the touch was warm, so warm, as if his wings were an hundred times more sensitive to a caring touch and a warm caress. So when the same hand then touched his hair, hesitantly at first, then combing through with cautious fingers, Aymeric sobbed for a different reason. He cried in anguish for friends that would be helpless to watch him die, heathens without grace but possessed of no less goodness for it, ignorant of the righteousness of the act. He wept for Alphinaud, for Hikari, for the strange adventurers and their odd little fairy, and for Y'shtola and the kindness she dispensed for a benighted stranger. He wept because he loved them, and because he would think of them every day that he suffered in the fires of whatever hell he was consigned to by the Goddess he loved even more.

 

Alphinaud let him cry, sitting silent for a long space in which the very air seemed to ache with their anguish. Finally, Aymeric lost the strength to continue, and his tears ran silent and dry.

 

“I doubt I can truly stop you, if that is what you have a mind to do,” said the boy at last. “But please... give it time. Perhaps in a few days you will see another path. We can work to find a cure. If...” and then his voice seemed to fail him, breaking like the supple branch of a young birch, merely bent too far to bear the strain. He emitted a sob of his own, and Aymeric turned his face again to see that he, too, had been weeping. The younger man was gritting his teeth against the impulse and wiping his eyes with the wrist of his glove, but there could be no mistaking the reason. When he spoke at last, he fixed the knight with a look of such injury that he was nearly sick to see it.

 

“If, in time, you still have no answer, then mayhap I can be convinced to... help.” And he looked away at the last moment, at the word that made his throat bob in helpless anguish, and his eyes thirst suddenly for the touch of his glove.

 

Aymeric wished that it was not a lie. But Alphinaud had never been very good at deceit.

 

“Alright,” replied the stricken knight, his own throat constricting over the word. “I will give it some time.” And he meant it just as much.

 

Perhaps the younger man knew it. Perhaps he did not. They sat in silence all the same, an uneasy companionship, the living able to think only of death. Aymeric submitted once again to the boy's touch, to the half-considered brush of his fingers over his shoulder and the narrow stripe of his own skin that ran the length of his spine. It was a guilty pleasure, not because it was not innocent, but precisely because it was. Aymeric was not fit to receive such comfort, least of all by one so true as the man who gave him succor. But beneath the brush of Alphinaud's fingers, he shivered with a strange sort of joy. He knew that he had caused only pain to the friend at his side. And yet he was grateful for the care he still shewed.

 

It was rather like the grace of his Goddess. And for a short moment, he let himself feel cared-for by them both. Unworthy of love from either, but given mercy all the same. It was true what they said. Even barbarians could reflect the will of Halone, because all goodness came through Her.

 

But when, at last, the Miqo'te maiden reappeared, bearing a bowl and the scent of a great feast, she was unable to say a word to the boy at his side. Alphinaud dashed from the room without a shred of dignity, as if he'd been a bird that wandered in through the window and finally, through his panic, saw the clear sky without.

 

She looked after him for a moment, then turned her curious, appraising eyes on the broken man that was bound, face-down, on the bed. He felt that he should flinch under her gaze, or hide once more in his pillow, but he did not. He let her judge his sins as surely as Halone, though he could not muster the strength to defend his convictions.

 

“I do not know if you are hungry,” she said softly, her voice supple and cool like a serpent on the ground. “But I will feed you either way. And when you are full of warmth and soup, know that there are many who care for you. And yet _more_ who care for that boy. And should you hurt him, thinking perhaps that your suffering will end along with your _life_ , know that there are those among us who have the wherewithal to see that it does not.”

 

And then she sat herself upon his bed and held forth a broth so rich and clear that Aymeric did not begrudge her the threat. It was almost a relief, in a way, a little spoonful of penance with his soup.

 

Her face softened as she lifted the spoon to his lips, watching him again like a sick child, making him feel oddly grateful for her care though it might have been easier to resent her. And she spoke to him tenderly once again, washing away the sting of her anger.

 

“Now tell me how you came to be thus, knight, and mayhap we may leech the poison from two wounds.”


	3. Prayer for Forgiviness

Alphinaud's retreat had been neither graceful nor timely. He should have left earlier. He should not have touched Aymeric so intimately, nor showed his grief. And he should certainly not have lied to the man who trusted him for his care, now that his homeland was no longer home and his faith was no longer a comfort.

 

But he had been desperate, and so he had compounded his errors all with a single goal. To keep Aymeric safe, as long as he could manage.

 

He was no fool. He knew that merely binding his arms was no proof against suicide, though it certainly helped. His claws were not merely long and curved and wicked, they were _sharp_. Y'shtola had already cut her hands merely by holding them as she had wrapped his wrists in bandages. Had he the awareness to use them as weapons, he would not have needed to steal Alphinaud's dagger in the wain. He could have slit his throat and loosed his blood before any had known he was planning it.

 

The young politician's steps slowed against stone, pausing in the hall outside the door to the room he called his own. It was not quite true, never quite true. Like the adventurers he commanded, Alphinaud was a wanderer. But the Sands and the Stones were the closest things he had to home. He felt safe here. Usually.

 

Just now, he felt chill to the bone with fear.

 

He pushed open the door, revealing his tiny cell. A low hearth, which he did not always bother to light or stoke, a bed, a bureau, a chair and a desk. An assortment of lamps and candles. A short, wide window, set high in the wall above his bed, to let in the warm scent of the Strait of Merlthor. He hadn't need for more. The privacy was enough. A personal space, maintained only sparsely by the one or two serving staff that remained under Urianger's command. When he resided here, they were not permitted to enter at all unless he explicitly bade them.

 

It was one of the few places in which he felt comfortable enough to do what he then did. He closed the door, tossed his boots into a corner, and climbed atop the bed. And then, rolling to face the wall, he gathered his knees into his chest, and he wept.

 

He had hardly known Ser Aymeric.

 

So it wasn't as though he wept because he cared for the man. Though, in a way, he most certainly did. He respected him, respected his strength and wit and loyalty. He resented the way he could never seem to get the better of the older man, so calm and confident, so sure of himself. But there was honor in defeat by a man such as he. It meant only that Alphinaud must strive to learn and grow, and perhaps one day he too could stride into a room and reduce his opponent's words to dust.

 

Aymeric was not a friend. But he was a comrade, in a way. He was a man who worked for goals similar to his own, and who was well willing to compromise to benefit the both of them. Alphinaud felt it keenly. The Ishgardian was not yet a friend. But he could have been, given time.

 

But he did not have time, anymore. Because if Aymeric were truly willing to sign his own death warrant, they would need to bind him hand, foot, and tooth in order to keep him alive against his own will. It would be cruel. It would break his spirit further. And it would mean surrendering any chance they had to keep him sane.

 

And that was the worst part of it all. Because it seemed that, though he was broken and achingly aggrieved, _he was not mad_. Alphinaud did not understand it fully, but there was no far-away look in his eyes, no dance to an inaudible drum. He did not suffer from a malady of the spirit, no depression or delusions or compulsions. It was all utterly logical. A rational response to a set of circumstances that many a man would consider reasonable, should he have held the same set of beliefs and assumptions.

 

His transformation was inarguable. And his faith, while just foreign enough to the younger man to disorient him whenever the topic arose, was no less plausible than Alphinaud's own. They believed in the same gods, after all. The only difference was that Alphinaud payed the most deference to Thaliak, Nophica, and when he was feeling especially fanciful, Menphina. The men of Isghard behaved as though Halone was the only power in the heavens, but it seemed to him only a matter of degree. He had met sailors who would not crew unless their fellows payed obeisance to Llymlaen alone, and Ul'dahns often behaved as if Nald and Thal were the only arbiters of worth.

 

Whatever Aymeric believed regarding his Goddess's will, he could be no more mistaken than the gambler who gave a tenth of his winnings to Nymeia by tossing them into the street.

 

Perhaps Alphinaud could have understood it... could have regretted his death and moved on, if only he had not been given the power to intervene. He had been worried when the other man had gone missing, but abstractly so. It was just another fell event, like the return of Shiva or the roar of the dread wyrm or the Ivy's unthinkable treachery. He had feared that Ser Aymeric had died. But if he had found out that it had been true, he would not have wept such tears. He would have devoted to his memory a moment of grim silence, and moved on. Like he always did, like he had when he had learned of Moenbryda's sacrifice, or of Krile's injury. He would not have done as he did now, weeping like a child until his gloves were slick and damp from wiping clean his nose, like he had when his grandfather had given his life and all of Eorzea had burned and quaked as if mourning his passing.

 

When he had found Aymeric, he had felt relieved that his comrade was safe. Then he had let down his guard, thinking that the other man had asked for death because he would not deliver it himself, and bound himself inextricably to the Lord Commander's fate. Whatever happened, now, would weigh on his conscience, because he had already failed once to keep him safe. Had it not been for Hikari and his mage friend, Aymeric would have been dead, and his blood on Alphinaud's hands, both figuratively and literally enough that he suspected he would always carry nightmares from the mere imagining.

 

He was glad then that he had had no appetite since he and two of Hikari's people had borne the man hence. Because if he had, the turning of his stomach would have been most inconvenient.

 

Thankfully, it seemed his eyes had only so many tears to give. It did not take long for the fit of his grief to subside into mere trembling and hiccoughing, as though the muscles in his chest no longer knew the right way to breathe. He pushed himself upright all the same, put aside his gloves and immersed his fingers in the cool clear water of the basin. He could not wash away his sins, not unless he could find some way to save the man from his own faith. But he could wash away his tears, and in so doing, give himself the courage to carry on, even if he yet held little hope.

 

By the time Y'shtola called upon him, he was feeling much more like himself. But that didn't stop her from taking in the redness of his eyes and giving him a look of tender concern, in her quiet, knowing way. He scowled and let her show herself in, waving vaguely toward the chair by the desk as he sat on the edge of his bed.

 

Aymeric's comment had been well-intentioned, but it rankled all the same. Because like the knight himself, Y'shtola carried a grace and maturity that he only tried to emulate. She was a friend. But on occasion he had cause to wonder if he might have preferred that she see him as more.

 

“Who is with him now?” he asked, pushing everything out of his mind save concern for their charge. They had agreed that he not be left alone, but with only four Scions on hand for the moment, one of whom no-one in their right mind would want to disturb, it would be a difficult task.

 

The Miqo'te woman had turned the chair around to face him and sat primly upon it, hands folded in her lap. “Thancred watches over him. I am not certain they will get on well, but he will try, at least. He seems a touch offended by the whole idea, I'm afraid, but I've made him swear to speak not a word about Thal in the commander's presence.”

 

Alphinaud allowed himself to bask in the idiocy of the situation for a moment, dropping his face into the palm of his hand and luxuriating in the warmth against his puffy eyelids. If only all of their problems could be so _trivial_. “I had not thought of that, I must admit,” he said, and his mouth quirked sideways into half a wry grin quite without his permission. “I rather thought Thancred would be fine so long as we relieved him of guard duty before the setting of the sun.”

 

In a flash Y'shtola's calm facade cracked completely, letting through a nasty glare before it faded to a frown of mild distaste. “He is a man of faith as well as virtue,” she finally returned with a helpless shrug. Miraculously, Alphinaud had the good grace not to laugh. “We must needs make do for now. Yda and Papalymo have not yet finished their business in the Shroud.”

 

Yda would have no problem watching over the knight-turned-dragon. Perhaps Papalymo could put him to sleep once the pugilist's yapping had driven him mad enough to resume begging for death. Alphinaud let himself chuckle a moment at the macabre thought, and he felt cleansed somehow for it, like turning his face toward the rain.

 

The conjurer shared a small smile with him, as though thinking the same thing. But she did not allow the thought to divert her overlong. “Someone must needs stay with him during the night,” she said carefully. It was a fact both of them knew well, and it could prompt only one conclusion. But she allowed Alphinaud to reach it himself, merely placing the problem before him for his impartial consideration.

 

He could think of no reason to hesitate. “It is my responsibility. I will see no-one else burdened by it.” It was the logical conclusion. Obviously the female scions were out of consideration as a matter of propriety, and he could not possibly have asked such an inconvenience of Thancred, Papalymo, and most especially not Urianger. He was already putting all of them out a great deal by requesting they stay nearby and take it in turns to watch the man. Alphinaud was already losing sleep over the issue. He would not take anyone else's hard-earned rest in the process.

 

The Miqo'te woman pursed her lips in a slight frown, regarding him seriously for a moment as though she had not expected the answer, though there was none other that he could have given. “He is not your _responsibility_ , Alphinaud. Should he take his life, no-one will be at fault but himself. All you can do is argue for your position. It is up to him to make the choice, and you cannot choose for him, nor blame yourself should he fail to be convinced by plain reason.”

 

Alphinaud knew her words to be true. And yet he could not believe them. He leaned backwards on his hands and looked to the ceiling of the darkened room, growing darker as the light from the window turned more orange and pink.

 

He knew that he was setting himself up for great pain and disappointment, by allowing himself to feel responsible for Aymeric's life. But he was afraid that if he didn't, if he didn't do everything in his power, he might be condemning the man to certain death. And he didn't want that to happen. He cared too much. It was stupid, but he cared enough about the other man's life to wound himself in the process of protecting it.

 

“I know,” he said at last, speaking more to the evening air than her. “Yet still I must do what I can.”

 

The Warrior of Light was always binding his life to the fate of others, always casting himself into the unknown to protect the innocent and the good. Aymeric was these things and more. He was, perhaps, the only hope the alliance had of opening Ishgard and forging Eorzea into a shadow of its former strength and resolve.

 

But just now that didn't matter. Just now, Alphinaud cared not for the consequences. He wanted to protect Aymeric as a friend. Was that what Hikari felt, when he fought alongside his comrades and risked his life for the fortunes of the myriad people he met along the path of his glorious adventure? Did he weigh each life in the balance according to the consequences of failure, or did he fight because each life was worthy on its own, each friend worth a dragon's weight in gold merely for the spark of companionship and joy?

 

No, there was no wrong in it. And he found, in his resolve, a sort of peace. Y'shtola found it as well, blinking slowly at him from her chair, rapping her dainty fist against her cheek as she took in his determination. Finally she shed a small smile, shrugging at him as she had shrugged over Thancred's misadventures, as if to comment on both their foolishness at once.

 

“I suppose,” she said at last, sucking in a breath over her teeth, “that you are interested to know what happened. I did persuade him to tell me, though it took some cajoling.”

 

“Yes, of course,” he returned immediately, sitting forward as though he could grasp at hope if he merely leapt off the bed suddenly enough. “Is there any way of reversing it?”

 

She held up one finger before her, stilling him immediately, reminding him once again that he lacked her discipline. “I do not know. I have heard reports that the heretics are able to transform into 'dragons' by partaking of a dragon's blood. Ordinarily it results in an aevis or another lesser creature, as he himself witnessed before they forced it upon him. Even they were surprised at the result, it seems. They said something about his blood being 'pure,' though he would not tell me what they meant by it.” She twitched her mouth to the side in annoyance, crinkling her lips into a wriggling frown. Alphinaud imagined her irritated merely by the thought of knowledge that had escaped her grasp.

 

The words tickled a memory in Alphinaud's mind. Of a time when the knight stood tall and proud, a wall against which the young diplomat might hurl words as trifling pebbles, until Aymeric himself would show him the door to the solution to his troubles.

 

“He is not of noble birth,” he said at last. “He told me so himself. He won his station with merit, though it is unusual among his kin.”

 

Y'shtola looked away from him, letting her eyes glaze dull as she peered into another realm of thought, positioned somewhere beyond the shadows in the corner behind the bureau. “It would be premature to conclude that nobility is all that is meant by purity of blood. He could be a 'pureblood' mongrel, or a bearer of some plague, or the descendant of a dragon halfbreed of yore. Recall that Saint Shiva was said to have lain with a dragon herself. He could be her very heir.” She shrugged at the thought, dismissing the dust accumulating in the corner with a wave of her hand and a flash of unevenly-bitten fingernails. “A sound conclusion cannot be drawn without recourse to more information. He may yet know more, but he will not speak of it. He is too poor of spirit. I can only heal his body, Alphinaud.” And her attention was once again on him, her sky-bright eyes seeming to bore into his own resolve, impressing upon him some hidden meaning.

 

“Then I will see what yet I can draw from him,” the young Elezen replied, choosing to ignore her secret messages altogether.

 

 

 

 

Alphinaud had been hopeful the last time he had seen Aymeric, before he had disappeared. For all his pretending to the contrary, for all his sharp words and recriminations, the young diplomat had thought he was finally seeing the way forward. His threat to withhold the cooperation of the alliance in the defense of the city had been mere bluster, and truly, he oughtn't have bothered. As ever, the Lord Commander had delivered unto him the only true way of accomplishing his aim. By seeing to the defense of Ishgard itself, they would no longer be able to ignore his entreaties for peace and cooperation.

 

And then, abruptly, the See had fallen as silent as the evening snow. It had taken days for Lucia to contrive to send him a message, harried from within as well as without. For not only had dragons and heretics taken residence on their very stoop, but without Aymeric's support, even her own status as First Commander had come into question. Her message had been terse and vaguely worded, but Alphinaud had a nose for politics, and this stunk of a coup. He had been advised to coordinate with the lords Haurchefant and Drillemont whenever he could, and wished the Fury's protection. And just like that, his hope of protecting a multitude of innocents from dragonfire and retrieving the alliance's long-lost brother in a blaze of glory had all but disappeared.

 

Alphinaud had hoped defeating Shiva once again might drive a wedge into the door. But he could no longer spare his words on gates closed tight against him. He had a more important task, greater than halting an invasion from Garlemald or stilling Leviathan's tail from sweeping clean the whole of Vylbrand. He held the life of a man within his palm, trembling and weak like a bird not yet fledged. And while restoring him to health could certainly aid their cause, he cared not a whit for it. Y'shtola could warn him with her dagger-pointed glares all she willed, but Alphinaud would help Aymeric because he cared. To call up his maps and charts and speak of politics would be sheer prevarication, and he counted himself above such lies.

 

At least, in the quiet of his own heart.

 

Alphinaud had partaken of another short nap, sleeping fitfully once again but feeling secure, at least, in his own resolve. Then he had descended to the kitchen, wanting nothing more than the crisp hammerbeak broth that Urianger had labored over. It was no great work of culinary art, simple to the point of blandness and carrying not a particle of meat nor meal. But Alphinaud had eaten little in the last day, and worry had made his stomach pitch and roil like Leviathan's tempest unleashed. The soup was inoffensive and nourishing, and so he carried a tray of broth and bread to the door of Aymeric's makeshift prison, mindful to thank the reserved scholar at his next opportunity.

 

He had half-expected to find Thancred deep in argument with the knight, or at least in a fell temper. But all that greeted him when he opened the door to the half-dragon's chamber was an easy silence. The Hyur looked up and smiled at him immediately, slouching comfortably in a chair he'd dragged near the bed, the better to watch his charge. Aymeric, for his part, seemed to be asleep, turned toward the wall with a wing draped over his side and relaxed in a way that immediately eased a tension deep within Alphinaud's heart.

 

“He's been asleep the whole time,” Thancred whispered with an abashed grin, as if he'd been watching over a baby in swaddling. But the young Elezen smiled as well, nodding to him and indicating he'd take over the duty of babysitter, leaving the Archon to do... whatever it was that he got up to, when the sun was no longer watching.

 

As soon as the Hyur had left, closing the door so gently even the click of the latch could hardly be heard, Aymeric let out a long, frustrated groan. “I thought he would never leave,” he grumbled, and began the process of wriggling about to face his visitor. When at last he beheld Alphinaud, who was covering his mouth and trying not to laugh, he let his face break into a guilty grin.

 

“What did he do to offend you? I shall have to speak to him if he was proselytizing,” said the younger man, not entirely sure he was serious. The chair at least had been well-placed, allowing him to set his tray upon the nightstand and sit beside it, feeling very much relieved.

 

Aymeric attempted to wave his hand dismissively, but succeeded only in rattling his chains and glaring at them as though they'd insulted his mother. “Naught, he was perfectly politic. It was the small-talk that broke mine spirit. When he asked if I was courting any ladies at home, I just... it was all I could do to yawn and ask for silence and rest.”

 

Alphinaud decided that it was alright, just this once, to laugh. A quick rolling ring like a bell, letting his teeth play in the lamplight, allowing the other man to view his inner thoughts rather than the careful mask of politician and chess-master he so often needed to pretend to.

 

And he realized that it was actually nice, to know that Aymeric was no longer of any use to him. Because now he no longer had to put on airs, and just perhaps, they could know each-other's hearts without pretense.

 

Assuming, of course, that Aymeric found it worthwhile to keep on living.

 

The final thought dampened his spirits, but the soft expression on the other man's face remained. So he pressed his luck a little, because he wanted all the joy he could get, at that moment.

 

“And, have you?” he asked lightly.

 

The other man snorted in mock-anger, struggling once again with his chains as he crawled closer to the head of the bed. The chain was so short that he might not have even been able to sit up comfortably, so he merely curled himself around his pillow, throwing his wings backward to stretch and curling his tail forward around his leg. He still moved a little haltingly, fluttering his wings vainly and twitching his tail as he tried to figure out what constituted comfort, now that he had two more limbs and a tail as long as a Silvertear cobra.

 

“No,” the ex-knight said through a distracted frown. “And I should think it neither of your concern, unless you intend to court me yourselves.”

 

Alphinaud allowed himself another guilty laugh, short and low and lighter than air. “One never knows with Thancred,” he said, calling forth Y'shtola's shrug as the most eloquent expression he could have used to describe him.

 

There was a strained space in the conversation then, when they had run out of levity and had to return to the situation at hand. Finally Alphinaud ventured forth. “Are you yet hungry?”

 

“I think,” said the knight speculatively, letting his eyes rest upon the soup bowl as if it were the subject of a philosophical treatise he was yet composing, “that I have never wanted anything more. What might I do to convince you to loose mine hands, and spare me a little dignity?”

 

The younger man paused in the act of drawing his chair closer to the bed. And he frowned, thinking of his options, playing each of them in his mind.

 

He could extract promises, certainly. And under ordinary circumstances, he would have trusted the Ishgardian, faithful, loyal, and true. But then he recalled the moment he had released him, and what had occurred before his eyes. A shock and a tremor seemed to grip him, mid-gesture, only half-sitting in the chair and supporting himself with an unsteady hand on the wooden arm-rest. It did not matter what the other man swore, he realized. The consequences of the gamble were yet too great.

 

From a theological perspective, Aymeric might even have been willing to break an oath sworn on the Enchiridion itself. Once a man was willing to risk damnation in order to do what was right... was there truly any obstacle that could be placed between he and his goal? When a man was that truly dedicated to what he conceived as good that not even the direct command of his _goddess_ could steer him away, what argument, what consequence, would be great enough to sway his course?

 

Gritting his teeth and his eyelids both, he finished his relocation and reached for the spoon. It took two attempts to swallow his own memory just to be able to look the other man in the eye. And when he did, it was well evident that his captive understood just what he had been thinking.

 

“I have been most unkind to you, friend,” Aymeric whispered gravely, the brows above his hawkish eyes gone soft and full of care.

 

Alphinaud swallowed once again, feeling as if a sob had missed its chance to express itself earlier and only now wanted out. But he ducked his head to hide his eyes beneath his long unruly bangs, always so convenient for those times when he could not conceal his youth and weakness. “I cannot blame you,” he said carefully. “Dearly would I like to set you free. But you must needs trade me some trust, or there is naught that I may do.”

 

The other man merely nodded, understanding well enough that Alphinaud was grateful to be spared elaboration. Then he scowled at his chains, pulling to and fro, determining the precise range of their reach. He had the liberty of a fulm or so of motion before the chains stopped short. It was quite deliberate, but there were downsides to leaving his movement so curtailed.

 

“'Tis a blessing, at least, that the soup is well worth sacrificing mine pride,” said the knight, sitting up on his elbows just enough that he might not choke on his supper.

 

Ere the spoon had even reached the knight's lips, Alphinaud had decided that the situation would needs change, and _soon_. Aymeric would not look directly at him, focusing all his attention on the cooling broth. But he could not shake the creeping feeling that he was disrespecting, nay, _mocking_ a noble man. Three spoonfuls was all he managed, and then the spoon was placed back into the bowl, and the bowl upon the tray on the stand beside the bed.

 

“I confess!” cried the knight, looking after the bowl in anguish in only half-jest. “Whatever crime you wish of me, I confess and repent.”

 

Alphinaud allowed himself a moment of respite, taking refuge in his hands and refusing to note that they trembled. “This will not serve us,” he said after a moment, scrubbing the feelings from his face and looking on his charge once again. “Is there aught that you can do to assure me that you will not harm yourself, just for a time?”

 

It was not merely for his own discomfort, he realized, flushing away a pang of guilt. The knight's own dignity was a part of the life he wished to preserve. To nurture his spirit, he would needs treat him with respect, even if in so doing there was an element of danger. He would needs _give_ the man a little trust, that he might in turn invest it for both their profit.

 

Aymeric tore his eyes away from the broth to look at Alphinaud wonderingly, seriously, searching his face for answers. He did not answer immediately. He pursed his lips and looked within himself as well, as though putting his own trustworthiness on trial.

 

“I... should, by all rights, take advantage of any opportunity you give me, I admit,” he said hesitantly, looking back to Alphinaud cautiously, as though he might withdraw the offer. “But I have harmed you already. I have given you no cause to trust me. But I can swear an oath on mine love for the Goddess that if you loose mine hands, I shall make no move to escape, nor cause myself harm, nor make provision to do so at a later time. I shall obey you—for a short time—until you bind me again. You may trust me because there is no higher love that I may swear to than Hers, and because... it is one thing to harm myself, but quite another to harm mine friends. I swear upon mine fealty to Halone, and to thee.”

 

Though he should not have, Alphinaud believed him. Because dearly did he want to, and because there was sincerity and grief in the other man's eyes. Technically his theology would have allowed deceit, if he had wanted to lie. But he did not believe Aymeric had it in him, to speak of a friend's pain merely to cause him more. In the end, though they did not know each-other overwell, it was because the knight had sworn upon their friendship that he yielded, more than his love for the goddess whom he served so slavishly that he welcomed even damnation if it were her will.

 

The key had been placed at the far end of the room, on a lower shelf of the table by the plush armchair in which he'd napped. Alphinaud retrieved it quickly, and then pushed back the smaller chair to kneel with one knee upon the bed.

 

He would preferred to have given Aymeric some space, but he himself had suggested the chains be kept short. He would needs get used to violating his privacy even in the act of granting him freedom.

 

The knight made an effort to move back and give him room, throwing his wings out against the wall as he rolled onto his back and exposed his chest. Alphinaud knew that he should not have looked down, but he did anyway, noting the unsteady breaths the other man took and the look on his face that was at once hopeful and threaded with fear. His skin had regained some color, at least. Save for the parts of him that were black as the night, he was as pale as a creature made of ice and snow when they had found him. Now, though he still looked a little wan and thin, his warrior's body having fed upon his very strength during his captivity, he did not seem as a man who might die at any moment. His body, at least, seemed intent on living.

 

Alphinaud gripped one of the manacles in his left hand, rotating it until he found the keyhole. He did not even attempt to still the tremor in his right as he brought forward the key. “Pray do not make me regret this,” he said softly, only realizing after he had said it aloud that the words were for himself, not his captive.

 

The key found the lock, and with a careful twist and a jiggle, the tumbler engaged and the iron slipped open. Aymeric removed his hand slowly, clasping and unclasping his fingers in a fist and making no movement to give the younger man cause for alarm. Then he stilled and waited, leaving no excuse save fear.

 

So the young diplomat put faith in his friend, trusted the word of a man who had betrayed him once already, and turned the key a second time.

 

The latch clicked, a dull, clumsy sound of machine parts crafted more to strength than precision. Time could have stopped at that moment, so loud was the hum of blood in Alphinaud's ears, so quiet the tension in the room. Suddenly he was not nearly so sure that he had made the right decision. He should at least have asked Y'shtola's presence. Now there was nothing to stop Aymeric save his own will. A will that he had already proven quite deadly.

 

But Aymeric only sighed, long and warm, drawing forth his other hand and clenching his claws rhythmically to work out the kinks and soreness and welcome back his blood. And then he sat up, slowly, keeping his hands securely anchored the bed behind him and rooting himself like a tree.

 

So it was that Alphinaud too sighed, slipping back into his chair and handing over the bowl of soup, once Aymeric had fixed him with soft eyes that seemed nearly to smile though his lips did not.

 

“What news from Ishgard?” the man-turned-dragon had asked quietly, once he had drunk a long drought directly from the bowl. Alphinaud handed him a slice of bread, which the knight nibbled at gingerly before dipping it into the broth and chewing with relish, closing his eyes to the sensations in his mouth as though even eating were a holy act.

 

Though his heart soared to see it, he could take no joy in delivering such ill news. “Silence,” he said, frowning pensively. “This is all we have received from the First Commander.” From his pocket he retrieved the note she had sent him, tersely-worded and laden with omens.

 

Aymeric scanned it quickly, for there was not much to read. But between the lines he found much that he did not like, his hawkish eyes narrowing to cool fury and his lips pulling back in a snarl. His teeth, like his fingers, had grown long and feral, his canines especially now elongated and coming to a cruel point. They were not the narrow needle-like teeth of a true predator, but neither were they the teeth of a man. As he grimaced in anger, then, Alphinaud could truly imagine him charging into the See and tearing his opponents limb from limb, defending Lucia's honor and possibly taking on the entire Inquisition in the process.

 

Alphinaud could try to soften the blow. “I can at least report that Hikari has slain Shiva once again. Lords Haurchefant and Drillemont are doing what they can to aid us. They have promised to send word if we are required to defend the city, as per your suggestion. But without cooperation from within, there is little that we can do but wait.”

 

The half-dragon let his ire wane, his tense wings slowly drooping once again around his shoulders. “It should be none of mine concern any longer,” he said dully. “But I cannot help but feel that it is mine own doing. Would that I could return and put things aright...” he trailed off into a croaking whisper, staring into his soup like a looking glass. “But mine blood... mine blood.”

 

Like so many times before, Alphinaud found that he had not words to challenge the Lord Commander and sway his course. He closed his eyes against the other man's anguish, unable to banish the image of his fine brows creased to sorrow and ruin.

 

Then he remembered how he often felt, at times like these, and amusement crept along his face to steal a wry grin from his lips. “At times like this, we must put our faith in our friends. Hikari, Lucia, Lord Haurchefant, the Azure Dragoon... it is their turn to bear the burden of Ishgard's defense. Mayhap someday soon you may rejoin the fight. But you must care for yourself ere you can lend your strength once again, must you not?”

 

Miraculously, Aymeric looked up and returned his smile. Long and thin, wiry like a fox after a hard winter.

 

It was enough to make Alphinaud hope, to make joy explode in his chest like a festival rocket. It was entirely possible that for a moment, he forgot how to breathe.

 

The knight quickly recovered himself, however, ducking his eyes again and drinking down the rest of his soup. Then he set down the bowl and merely sat, looking at his hands and wallowing in the long silence of a room that seemed empty even when occupied. He traced the ridges on his fingers along knuckle and bone, lingering on the places where his fingertips turned black and scaly, then long and chitinous. He touched the soft pads of all ten fingers, each with the opposite hand. A long, captivated exploration as if he'd been two summers old and still hadn't sorted out how his body worked. And it was true. He was new again, young in his body, clumsy and inexperienced and as curious as a child.

 

If only he'd had the matching sense not to be ashamed of it, Alphinaud felt. If it weren't for the prejudice of his countrymen, of the long war over an obscure history and a byzantine theology, it would not have been so bad.

 

The exploration of his hands completed, he moved to his mouth. Slowly, halting at one point to catch Alphinaud's eye and flush under his open scrutiny, flexing his claws with palms out in a gesture of non-violence. Then he bared his teeth and twisted his lips into a sneer, merely to run the pad of his thumb along his canines and map their jagged points.

 

“Wings, tail, claws, teeth,” he said when he had completed the inventory, running his tongue along his lips nervously. “Is there anything I've missed? I don't suppose you have a looking-glass?”

 

Not precisely handy, though it could be arranged. But Alphinaud didn't precisely fancy the idea of something so easily fashioned into a weapon being brought into the room. “Mayhap we can find a hand mirror later. For now I can say... that's all I'm aware of. I did not see anything amiss until you were unbound. I didn't even notice the teeth until recently. With a cloak, you might pass, if you could learn to govern your tail.”

 

The wry smile returned to Aymeric's face as he snorted lightly in amusement tinged with derision. “Yes, I shall look much less suspicious that way. No-one has ever donned a cloak because they had something to hide. I am sure the Inquisitors will be mollified if only I tell them that I am _cold_.”

 

Somehow Alphinaud doubted that cold made much excuse for anyone, in the lands above Abalathia's Spine.

 

He wanted to push away all thoughts of the Inquisition, of responsibilities and a home that would spurn him. But Aymeric was smiling at him, and it was progress. “We will find a way,” he said gently, letting his grin bleed into an affectionate smile, warm and true. And then he opened his mouth once more, only at the last stopping himself from finishing his thought aloud.

 

He would do anything to see it done.

 

It was not a promise that he could make, in truth. Nor was it appropriate. They hardly knew each-other, after all. But he had felt it keenly enough that he had nearly charged off the cliff of his mind and tossed his words into the wind. Instead he clenched his fist and ducked his head to stare at it, as though he, too, found his hand utterly fascinating.

 

In reality, he was having difficulty finding a subject that could occupy his thoughts thoroughly enough to banish the blush tickling his cheeks.

 

But Aymeric did not call him on his foolishness, nor laugh at his naivety. He merely placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed, a quick gesture of comfort without the lingering impropriety of Alphinaud's trembling touches from before.

 

Then the knight stood, pacing beyond the chair in which Alphinaud sat and turning half to face him. He reached his arms behind his head and began to stretch, carelessly, without regard to his company but merely enjoying his freedom. The movement seemed to sweep over his entire body, rolling over into his wings. They swept suddenly open behind him, snagging only momentarily on the furniture as they passed, then unfurled to his side, long enough to sweep the sides of the room with the leading edge and threaten to knock over anything that was not nailed down. He held the motion for a moment, jaw clenched and eyes closed, neck outstretched as he tipped his head back in some manner of focus. His great wings trembled with the tension of the stretch, like leaves shaking in a gentle wind. And like that, Alphinaud became acutely aware of the near-nakedness of the man before him, of the hard plane of his chest and the lithe grace of his body. Just like that, he changed from a man of quiet nobility, to a creature of wild, captivating beauty.

 

Then he relaxed, and they slowly wilted again, the leathery skin stretched between his bones contracting and growing thick and wrinkly and inky-black. He let out a slow breath through his nose, and only after he dropped his arms and opened his narrow eyes to regard Alphinaud in turn did the younger man realize that he was staring, once again.

 

This time it was Aymeric who blushed, coughing quickly into his hand as he pulled his wings quickly to his side and paced nervously around the room. Like a coeurl, he lashed his tail anxiously to-and-fro as it slid behind him on the ground.

 

“I am sorry,” Alphinaud found the courage to mumble. “I should not stare. You have enough worries without me compounding them with my gracelessness.”

 

The other man paused the shuffle of his feet only momentarily, then took up his pacing again as he replied. “It is not offense. Merely shame. I must look an abomination. Mayhap it is better that I do not see myself.” He spoke to himself, in something between a grumble and a whisper, raspy and hard. “Mayhap I could not bear to see it.”

 

“No,” Alphinaud mumbled hurriedly, ducking his face beneath his bangs once again but blushing so thoroughly the glow must have been visible from across the room. Inwardly he thought of an hundred things he wanted to say, but he was _just_ sensible enough not to voice them.

 

The way his heart had leapt into his throat made him ill-inclined to trust his tongue just now. Aymeric had _always_ been handsome. Alphinaud had been well-aware of that fact, an objective truth like the whiteness of the snow or the idiocy of the Holy See. But now it nearly overwhelmed him in its savage force, the grace of the man before him, the fineness of his features and the noble line of his brow. His face was smooth and hairless even after a week of captivity, a trait of many Elezen beneath forty summers. Rather than making him seem feminine or immature, it added to the willowy grace and youthful vitality of the man, reminding Alphinaud of his height and the length of his pointed ears. His narrow eyes had become captivating, dangerous in the way they seemed to penetrate his thoughts, and he itched, he _itched_ to put his fingers once more into the knight's wavy black hair. Aymeric had been handsome before. But now he was beautiful, and Alphinaud was shocked at the way his body reacted to the display, and more than a little frightened.

 

Instead he squeezed his eyes shut and composed his thoughts carefully, discarding the awe that had blazed so fully to life within his breast and leaving only the dry facts. When he schooled his tongue to speak, it was with great pride that he noted barely a tremor in his softened voice. “You are not unpleasant to the sight, my friend. Pray be at ease. I am merely fascinated, and too foolish to govern my gaze.”

 

When he looked up, he only briefly saw Aymeric look at him sidelong before his view was obscured by a wing. “Then I am horrified enough for the both of us,” he replied quietly. At least it seemed the other man believed that _he_ was not.

 

Before long he seemed to tire of pacing and stretching, and crawled back onto the bed, on all fours, angling his wings upward with difficulty to keep from treading on them. It broke Alphinaud's heart to see him stretch up his hands again, placing them in reach of the shackles and closing his eyes in defeat. But he did what he must to protect the man, carefully placing the irons about his wrists and locking them shut, all while touching him as little as he could manage.

 

When the second tumbler had clicked closed, Aymeric sighed so forcefully it emerged as a grunt of relief, and his shoulders and wings sagged against the bed. It had not been his imagination. The man had been trembling beneath his grip, and it had not been fatigue or malnourishment.

 

Still, the knight raised his eyes from the pillow and regarded his captor, and their pale blue seemed to speak of the morning sun now, instead of the frost. His narrow smile was still weak, but it seemed hopeful. Aymeric was still far too broken to leave unsupervised. But the investment of trust had, by all indications, yielded dividends.

 

Alphinaud smiled back at him, and had to stop himself from lifting a hand to stroke him with affection that exceeded his sense. “My friend, do you mind terribly if I sleep here? I swear that I shall be better company than Thancred, especially at this hour,” he teased gently.

 

Aymeric snorted peaceably, perhaps understanding his joke, perhaps merely glad not to suffer the Hyur's company. “Do what you will. I shall be too busy sleeping to care.”

 

Together they labored to pull back the blanket beneath him, and the knight allowed Alphinaud to tuck it over his legs as he splayed his wings out comfortably at his side. Then he called for Y'shtola to stand watch, and went to his own chamber to prepare for bed.

 

She was leaning against the wall by the door when he returned to the room, clad in his night-things with his pillow in tow. “He seems more relaxed,” she whispered. “I saw him smile. I know not what you have done, but if you continue I may needs re-evaluate my characterization of your foolishness.”

 

“If he continues to improve, I shall care not whether you think me a dullard or the Emperor himself,” he murmured in reply. “Thank you... for everything.”

 

She gave him a strange sort of smile, not curvy but wide, and her eyes narrowed to the amused slits of a coeurl on the hunt. “I do it because I care,” she said simply, leaving him alone to decide upon whom her charity was bestowed.


	4. Prayer for Rest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has recently come to my attention that Aymeric is 32 in canon, and I am having some major issues right now. I think it's less of an issue in this story than in Bellyachin' (oddly, but that's Stockholm Syndrome for you), but it's still something of a problem. If it helps you to imagine, like I did, that Aymeric is in the 25-27 range as his naiveté suggests, then please do so.
> 
> Once more, Hikari is #notmyWarriorofLight, and isn't here to steal the show.
> 
> Redolent Rose will definitely steal the show. And embroider it with gold accents before putting it on and strutting down Emerald Avenue with his hat-upon-a-hat.

Alphinaud was a man of many skills.

 

Some, like Arcanima, were cultivated with practice as well as raw talent. Others, such as looking the Admiral herself directly in the eye, seemed to come to him perfectly naturally. So it was with no reluctance that he sat once again in the plush chair in the far corner of Aymeric's room, and gathered the blanket into his lap. He wedged his pillow against the wall and leaned into it, curling slowly and by fits into the crumpled position that his body favored most when he he slept upright. The chair was cushioned, a pillow rested beneath his cheek, and a blanket kept his legs warm, and so for him it was nearly as good as a fine feather bed.

 

So it was something of a surprise that he didn't fall immediately into slumber. Instead, his mind wandered. Not lazily, the soft slip of thoughts that could not tell themselves from dreams, but with a manic focus. They flitted and hovered, circling with purpose around a single subject. Ser Aymeric. Try as he might, he could not sleep, because he could not stop wondering about the broken knight, or the beautiful vision he had presented when he had stretched innocently before his eyes.

 

He had deliberately avoided thinking on it until the other man was sound asleep. But he had run out of excuses, because ordering his mind to still and having it obey were entirely different things. Having nothing else with which to occupy himself, and no observers, he was free to think any thoughts that felt the need to assert themselves. And to his shame, they were many and varied, nearly all of which involved a lithe, toned chest or a pair of hawkish eyes the color of winter's chill.

 

If he hadn't known better, Alphinaud might have thought he was beginning to be smitten with the older man.

 

It was not as shocking a thought as all that. Alphinaud had spent the majority of his Scholasticate years chasing girls, the chief inconvenience of puberty being the sudden inexplicable desire for companionship coupled with the singular difficulty of achieving it. Desperation and inexperience did not make for an attractive mate, and he had been more awkward than most. Prideful and bookish in equal measure, self-assured and hasty to speak. It was small wonder that he had met with little success. That he had gotten as far as he had may have spoken more of his looks than his demeanor.

 

That being said, this wouldn't be the first time he had found himself attracted to a male. It had happened before that he might dedicate a passing glance or a flight of fancy to a man who caught his eye, by grace or skill or looks alone. But there had never been any reason to act upon such thoughts, nor any reason to feel threatened by them.

 

This was the first time it had seemed to truly matter. And the first it had made him afraid.

 

He had already admired the knight. It was an admiration coupled with irritation, nearly jealousy. It was easy to confuse his skill at negotiation with his raw magnetism, and he was awed by both. Awed and resentful, at times, because Alphinaud was not accustomed to being bested, much less batted aside like a golem ignoring the buzzing of an insistent fly.

 

Now, though, the Lord Commander was not his opponent. He was his charge, to nurture and protect. He was vulnerable, physically and emotionally, so much that the younger Elezen was sick to think of it. Any attraction Alphinaud might feel for him was not merely inappropriate, it was _dangerous._

 

It mattered little that he was attracted to a _man_. It may have helped, in fact, because there would needs be no tittering about the 'virtue' or 'innocence' of a young maiden, as if a girl might combust should a man lay his eyes upon her for too long. No, it was dangerous because he needed the ex-knight to focus on his recovery. He needed Aymeric's implicit trust. He did not want him worried that he would give the younger man ideas if he moved the wrong way, or to think that his caretaker's motives were suspect. He most _certainly_ didn't want to suggest anything that the Ishgardian might not truly want, not when his own feelings were in turmoil and he was so desperate for comfort that he had accepted Alphinaud's overly-familiar touch without question.

 

If anything, of course, it was likely because he cared so much that he had been so affected. Alphinaud had hardly slept since the rescue, and he'd spent every moment since then in fear for the man's life. It was only now that he felt any relief, any chance that Aymeric might emerge, someday, whole of spirit and possessed of a love of life.

 

Perhaps, in that singular moment, he had been so filled with hope that his affection for his friend had simply run amok. Perhaps his cares were like stray sheep, and the fences of his mind too worn from worry. Perhaps he was mistaking a perfectly natural attraction to the quite different need to act upon it. He could stand to be in the same room as Minfilia, after all, or Y'shtola, or even Thancred, at his most clever and least patronizing. There was no reason to think that he could not be trusted with a man who could clearly best him in any contest of strength, will, or wit, even half-starved and broken as he was.

 

Resolved, then, not to worry about the inclinations of his fancy, his thoughts finally did land to graze upon the soft ground. The chair finally embraced him as a friend, and he settled into an easy sleep.

 

He was awoken some time later by the sound of struggle, and immediately he opened his eyes to search for the disturbance.

 

The lamp had been shuttered to glow only dimly. Alphinaud preferred to sleep in total darkness, but he had been afraid Aymeric might have difficulty sleeping, and it seemed that it was the case. He was currently thrashing and pulling at his chains, in small, sudden movements. The younger man found his feet immediately, stumbling to his bedside and crawling onto it to better see the knight sheltered beneath his angular black wing.

 

His eyes were shut, not in terror or deliberate action but relaxed and mired in sleep. He merely twitched and whimpered softly, and too late Alphinaud realized that his confinement might negatively impact his dreams.

 

He knew not what the other man had suffered, but he knew enough to prefer Aymeric not suffer through it again. So he lost no time in placing his hands on the man's back, carefully avoiding his wing, shaking as gently as he could manage and whispering soothingly. “Aymeric, 'tis alright, you are only dreaming. Wake up,” he urged.

 

What he got for his troubles was a wing to the face, but fortunately only his pride suffered for it. His hands were thrown clear of the prone man and he sat back in a huff, rubbing the sting of impact from his nose. He rather suspected that had the blow been intentional, he would have been thrown from the bed entirely and perhaps bloodied as well. As it was, only his balance had saved him from topping backward over the edge.

 

Aymeric flailed backwards to peer over his shoulder in confusion, but relaxed when he beheld Alphinaud. “Mine apologies, did I strike you? I was...” his eyes seemed to unfocus in the dim lantern-light, his brow furrowing with trouble.

 

“You were dreaming, I know,” the younger man rushed to reply. “You are quite safe now. None will harm you here.”

 

“And yet, mine demons follow close upon mine heels,” complained the knight blearily, wilting into his pillow once more. He wrapped his wing once again around his shoulder, still facing the wall, and he curled his legs closer beneath the blanket as if he wished to crawl into the arms of his mother instead.

 

Alphinaud hesitated, then.

 

If it had been him, he would likely have wanted to be left alone, to suffer in silence but without the shrill judgment of observing eyes. But Aymeric's suffering would not diminish with time, would not seem brighter with the dawn. He had been captured, likely tortured, and now not even his body seemed a safe refuge. When he had bowed his head to rest his mind had returned to his tormentors, and when he had awoken, he was once again confronted with the reality from which he could not wake. Alphinaud could not, in good conscience, simply return to sleep.

 

So instead he clambered upon the edge of the bed, and settled against the wall above Aymeric's pillow. He moved lightly, hardly disturbing the blankets like a hare upon the snow. The prone knight turned to look at him warily, eying him from over his bone-sharp shoulder. Making neither comment nor question, but asking with his gaze nonetheless.

 

“If you wish to speak, I would listen,” offered Alphinaud gently once he'd arranged himself. He let his gangly legs stretch atop the covers with one knee bent, covered to the ankles in his soft blue pyjamas. There was still some distance between them, a blanket and a sheet, rustling wings and the air of casual companionship. At least, that's how he hoped it would be interpreted.

 

The other man made a low sound of acknowledgement, somewhere between a growl and a grunt. He stopped craning his neck to look, instead surrendering to the need to curl his body further until his forehead nudged against the stone wall. Then he closed his eyes, seeming to relax into the silence between them. A gesture of acceptance. Like a wolf, the greatest sign of trust he could give seemed to be to ignore Alphinaud entirely. Rather than be offended, the younger man let a smile creep along the edge of his lip as he reclined against the cool stone. If silence was what Aymeric needed, he had no difficulty providing it. He had long ago learnt to be at peace within the palace of his own mind.

 

At length the knight's breaths drew long and deep, the ropes wound tight within his torso relaxing one-by-one. Finally he snorted a puff of air through his nose, and rolled half onto his back to regard the boy looming above him.

 

“I do not know what I might say,” he said, quietly enough that he barely disturbed the silence of the room. Even his voice, then, was willowy and frail, though it was ordinarily as broad and strong as ancient oak.

 

Alphinaud let his shoulders twitch into a light-hearted shrug. “Anything you wish. Anything you feel might help. Or nothing at all, if you prefer. I am here regardless.” He hesitated only a moment before letting his fingers brush the knight's shoulder. It was only a brief touch, a cameo portrait of silken skin and quiet strength. But the shadows in Aymeric's eyes seemed to retreat a little just the same, the ghosts of his pain haunting him that much less.

 

The warrior closed his eyes again, less deliberately. Seeming less to block out the world and more to open one within. Only his mouth betrayed the thoughts beyond, the blank line of his lips stretching tight and thin.

 

“I care little for the pain,” he said at last. “I was prepared to suffer. I would have done so gladly. But this... I could not have imagined that it were possible to damage mine _soul_. I tried to remain unsullied. I tried to suffocate. I tried to _die._ But in the end I was helpless to resist, no matter how pure mine devotion.” His brows creased to sorrow, eloquent and beautiful even upside-down as Alphinaud viewed him. “It is the helplessness that haunts me now, I think. That no matter how thoroughly I rejected the taint, yet still I was overtaken by damnation.”

 

The younger man slid his legs back to hug his knees close, leaning forward to watch over his charge. Alphinaud could not himself come close to imagining such a situation. He was under no illusion that he would be capable of resisting torture of any kind. He was not a warrior, and though he believed in his ideals and loved his friends, he was not foolish enough to believe he could endure any and all suffering for their sake. He knew there would come a point, sooner or later, where he would be forced to give. And knowing that, it was likely to come far sooner.

 

Yet, in yielding to torture, there was some manner of control. It was true that one's choices were never good, and that even after electing to speak, there was no guarantee of kind treatment. But there was still a choice to be made, a spark of defiance in one's heart or the embrace of compliance, of meek defeat.

 

Aymeric had had no choice but to bear his suffering, and to become that which he hated. And not even his Goddess had saved him.

 

He sat sentinel for some minutes, watching the other man's face relax and his sorrow melt into something less concrete. Pale blue eyes flickered over him in turn, their usual intensity tempered by vulnerability and soft light.

 

Alphinaud hadn't the means to do it, the knowledge _or_ the strength, but he _needed_ to protect his knight-turned-dragon. His heart blazed with the desire to shelter that wounded, unprotected spirit from even the tiniest hurt. He wanted to be shield and spear until Aymeric was strong enough to stand on his own, and lift his sword again.

 

It could not be that his soul was lost for the actions of another. Gods did not work in such a way. Faith was not a prize that could be stolen. Virtue was a thing that shone brightly from within. And Aymeric, noble Ser Aymeric, could _not_ be corrupted. The very idea filled him with indignation, burning his lungs like a fading breath and threatening to choke him on his outrage.

 

It seemed as if the knight had spoken as much as he'd wanted to. So, though he knew he should not have, Alphinaud took up the echoing space as his own. “I cannot believe your soul is changed,” he said, trying to bleed the crossness from his words and leaving only a faint edge of bitterness. He directed his gaze away from the weakened man at his feet to glare instead at the shadows in the darkened room that dared to resist the light. “You yourself would claim to prize the spirit over the body's vessel. Is the design on the amphora of more import than the oil within?”

 

Aymeric responded with a deep hum of contemplation, a little ragged and mournful at the edge where it trailed off to join the trembling quiet of the room. When it had gone, the silence itself seemed to vibrate with his thoughts. “Perhaps not for matters profane,” he said at length. “But for oil dedicated to sacred purpose, no mark may mar the vessel. No imperfection is to be permitted, from within or without. We draw the sign of the Fury upon it that anointments come not from mortal hands, but from the Goddess herself. Form and symbol are no accident. I have dedicated mine body and mine life to the service of Halone. Now that I bear the mark of evil, the unfit vessel must be shattered that a new one might be found for service.”

 

The speech was delivered calmly, though with a strain of sorrow woven through it like a ribbon in a maiden's hair. One could nearly have believed the knight merely to be expounding on a matter of theology, rather than the question of his own life's worth. Alphinaud would needs admit to being a touch awed at the ease with which he parried the analogy, eyes closed to the dim lamplight and already mourning a life not yet over. It was with a little difficulty that the younger man rallied his own sense once more, closing his own eyes against the lithe body laid beside him and the urge to nestle against it to comfort them both.

 

It was perhaps best to redirect. He had no authority over the other man's theology, nor did he wish to. He objected only to the conclusion, to _any_ claim that his worth had been stolen against his will. “Then your body has been profaned,” he replied, though he didn't agree in the slightest. “I suppose now you are nearly as bad as we heathens who live beyond the Gates of Judgment. How terribly _dreadful._ ”

 

It was a risky gambit. He opened one eye to search the other man's face for a reaction, as though a single eyelid could protect him from the consequences of his daring.

 

Blessedly, the knight merely laughed. It joyless and sharp, a mere dry quake like a sore cough. But it seemed an improvement still, and Aymeric's eyes seemed warmer for it, once he'd opened them again to gaze up at the boy who stood guard at his pillow.

 

“The answer to _that_ is obvious. Even the rudest tallow is better than the finest olive oil gone rancid. But I find that I cannot agree with the sentiment.” He looked softly up at Alphinaud, rotating slightly closer and stretching out the wing that had been trapped beneath before relaxing to lie flat again, arms stretched out and shoulders loose as though they merely watched the stars. “'Tis an easy thing, without knowing you, for mine countrymen to judge you as a servant of sin. But though you walk a path profane, you work the will of the Goddess. Not for care of reward or judgment, but of the goodness of your heart. The mark upon your urn is one of worldly travail and base concerns. But it is because the oil within is as pure as the  lamps that light the altar, symbolizing Halone's very love.”

 

The wry grin that the young diplomat had harbored at being likened to chicken grease faded into astonishment, then bloomed into a blush. He was finally forced to look away, hiding his face on the other side of his bunched-up knees. Such praise was uncharacteristic of the knight. Alphinaud was rather more used to being made to feel childish in his presence. But perhaps this was the regard in which the commander held him, but could never express for fear of tipping his hand. Or perhaps only now was he in such dire need that his defenses had shattered, and his truths had spilled out for all the world to see.

 

Regardless, he was flattered in the extreme. It took him a moment to swallow the burst of pride and embarrassment before he could once again look upon the knight. When he did, the other man's pale eyes were closed once more, relaxed, no longer creased with care or sorrow.

 

It seemed so obvious to Alphinaud that there was _always_ a way forward. If only Aymeric could see it as well. “If the path is no less noble, then surely you might deign to walk it as well. You needn't throw yourself on the mercy of your clergy. You could serve all of Eorzea from here, or you could work to protect Ishgard from without. Surely the Fury counts the service of even the lowliest peasant who cannot recall the words of their prayers and hasn't the coin for alms. Surely a man such as you, knowledgeable, clever, and unshackled by tradition, could still have a place in her plan.”

 

Aymeric looked up again, regarding him almost slyly through half-lidded eyes. Thinking, it seemed, for a long stretch of breath, his dark lashes wavering at the boundary between life and dreams. “I cannot believe that what has transpired is according to Her plan,” he whispered at last. “But the path you offer is... tempting. Perhaps _too_ tempting, for one such as me.”

 

A small smile of satisfaction graced Alphinaud's lips, and perhaps more than a little affection. “Good. Then I shall keep tempting you, as often as possible.”

 

It was a silly thing to say, but the knight smiled and snorted through his nose in vague amusement all the same. And then he relaxed once more, rolling onto his side and wiggling his wings until they lay freely behind his back like a thick hide blanket between them.

 

Alphinaud waited for a time, watching the bent claw at the pinion of the dragon's wing as it fluttered over Aymeric's shoulder in time with his breath. Not for the first time, the younger man restrained the urge to reach out and stroke it, tracing his fingers over the curved point of the claw and down the leading edge that curled protectively over his side. He wondered if the wings could sustain flight. It seemed impossible, especially given that the transformation was incomplete. The wings might be too small, or insufficiently grounded by muscle. Elezen backs were designed to move a pair of arms with strength and precision. The power required to lift an entire body into the air was an entirely different matter. It was foolish to hope.

 

And yet, as in all things, he _did_ hope. It seemed to him that it would have been just, to allow the knight to take wing and soar through the heavens. A small gift in exchange for a life torn asunder and a faith kept but unrewarded.

 

As Aymeric seemed intent on sleeping, Alphinaud edged carefully from the bed once more, meeting cold stone with the balls of his feet and balancing for a moment on his toes to avoid the chill. But the knight murmured plaintively at him, not moving but merely muttering at the wall. “Pray, stay with me Alphinaud,” he said, his words slurred together from sleep.

 

“Of course,” the young diplomat answered, surprised but not displeased. He retrieved his pillow and blanket from the chair and returned to his seated position upon the bed. Sitting upright allowed him to pretend he was merely sleeping nearby, rather than nestled close in what could justly be called a compromising position. He set the pillow behind his shoulders and leaned into the wall, and slowly, by fits and degrees, sagged down to lie upon the bed. Curled like a cat beside the knight's head, where not a thing disturbed either of their slumber for the rest of the night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sleep worked a wondrous magic, washing away the previous day's troubles like a drawing upon the sand. The cycles of the tide obliterated all things, in time. The living, the bones of the dead, great joy and insufferable pain. Even Allag had fallen, its great Crystal Tower locked away by the bonds of time itself, like a miser who hoarded beauty that none might see it shine.

 

Alphinaud believed that time would vanquish evil, as well as greatness. He believed that all wounds could heal, that no cause was truly lost. He believed that even when one's heart was sundered and broken beyond recognition, merely to walk along the beach and let the waves carry away the shards could become an act of triumph in itself.

 

He believed it because it was what he himself had done, since the day his grandfather had forged his body and soul into a shield to protect the very _world_ with his love.

 

Seven-odd years later, the boy and his charge had slept rather later than expected. Waking so close to the knight had been jarring, but he was able to right himself before the other man stirred, hopping out of bed and smoothing his embarrassment as though they were feathers ruffled by sleep.

 

Aymeric seemed to have rested well, but his waking was still attended by sorrow. The other man found the light not long after, rattling his chains confusedly for a moment before buying his face in the pillow and unleashing a heart-rending groan of disappointment. “The price I pay for a few bells of forgetfulness, I suppose,” he groused, turning onto his stomach and beginning a series of languid stretches.

 

Alphinaud was forced to turn his back to avoid staring with the avidity of an entomologist in Cutter's Cry. He found that he was suddenly _quite_ awake.

 

It was one thing to fancy the man, Alphinaud thought. But the scholar in him was simply _fascinated_ , and he could not quite seem to leash both impulses at once. A part of his mind lingered on the roll of the knight's hips as he'd pulled his knees forward and arched his back. Another was diagramming the curve of the tail that protruded from his sagging trousers, following the curve of his spine and pushing aside the blanket as an undulation coursed down its length.

 

It occurred to him that, while he had not practiced his drawing in some time, he was in sore need of a sketchbook. For _science_ , of course. The intricacy in the bones of the wings alone was _breathtaking_. He wanted to catalogue every single one.

 

Assuming, of course, the other man was comfortable enough to model for him. He had attempted to treat potential dates as specimens for study before, with results that were as predictable as they had been unpleasant. He was roused from his reverie merely to shake his head at himself, a reminder of his own lack of social graces, here in the presence of their very master.

 

He still had a charge to care for. As far as he was concerned, Aymeric's needs came first, Eorzea's second, and his own childish curiosity could take a walk off an airship's aft deck if it tried to interfere. The fact that his care for the foreign knight was outstripping his sense of duty hardly raised an alarm, by this point.

 

“Do you suppose you could find it in you to repeat your promise?” Alphinaud asked once he'd composed himself enough to look at the other man again. It was a near thing, too. Aymeric had wiggled free of the blankets but left his knee sprawled to the side, emphasizing his rear and the hidden cavern beneath his stomach though he was otherwise flat upon the bed. His wings had been tossed casually back, revealing his shoulders and arms held forward, bent and clasped together in permanent supplication.

 

His hair was a mess, the short curly strands haphazard without truly seeming tangled. He looked thoroughly rumpled, and though the younger man knew quite well it had been from sleep, the hazy cast of his the knight's eyes as he looked sleepily back at his caretaker was doing nothing to keep his imagination in check.

 

He regretted making the offer. It would have been better to summon whomever was awake at the moment, and make his morning preparations on his own. His body's reaction suggested it might be wise to remove himself from the situation as soon as he could manage it. But Aymeric yawned, baring his fangs at his pillow because he could not cover his mouth with his hands, and nodded. “Yes,” he murmured softly. “'Tis a new day, after all, and I'm like to sleep through it if I stay here.”

 

Alphinaud was forced to shrug at his _own_ stupidity, and help the knight free.

 

It seemed that they had already seen the extent of Aymeric's transformation, save for a set of smaller claws protruding from his toes. There was a full-length mirror in the common bath, before which the Ishgardian stood transfixed once he had fully disrobed. Slowly, he lifted one clawed hand to place against the mirror, reaching out as if to touch his twin through glass that revealed the unflinching truth.

 

It seemed a deeply personal moment, one that made Alphinaud's heart stutter and claw at his throat in sympathy. There was no comfort he could possibly give. So he, too, stripped to nothing but his towel, and quietly went about his business. He would not interfere. He would be the ghost of companionship that asserted itself only when summoned, and until then, Aymeric could have all the time and quiet in the world in which to think.

 

It was foolish to think that he might come to terms with it, someday. It was even foolish to think that they might find a cure. But he supposed he was that sort of fool.

 

The scholar kept a wary eye in Aymeric's general direction, watching for sudden movements or tense posture. But he was careful not to look too closely, keeping his eyes from wandering where they dearly wished to roam. He kept his focus squarely on his own bathing, the task of becoming thoroughly clean in all its minute detail. Scrubbing every ilm of himself he could reach as he sat on a stool near the bath, then carefully unbraiding his hair and luxuriating in a bucket of warm water poured over his head.

 

By the time he'd washed his hair and rinsed away every sud, Aymeric was occupied in a similar set of tasks nearby, his back turned and shielded by a wall of wing. Were circumstances different, perhaps, the young diplomat might have offered to help wash them. Instead he gave the knight his space, and stepped into the deep tub, sighing as he sank to the edge of his chin in water just cool enough to bear.

 

A bath like this was a small price to pay for having to share it, Alphinaud thought, letting his eyes drift closed and merely listening to his companion's movements. Most families hadn't the space or the money for such a traditional luxury. But when so many adventurers had passed through every day, the Scions couldn't afford _not_ to provide facilities to bathe. The bath was large enough for several to rest comfortably, kept warm at all hours by a bomb core beneath. If he ever managed to find a true home for himself, he wanted a bath like this. If he only allowed himself one ostentatious waste of gil, he thought, let it be a magicked tub and the water to drown his troubles in.

 

When Aymeric joined him a few minutes later, the warmth of his sigh suggested that he wholeheartedly agreed. The younger man opened his eyes to see the knight similarly relaxed, seated on the submerged bench along the rear wall and stretching his wings wide to droop below the surface. He, too, had closed out the world, his angular jaw tipped into the air as he rested his neck on the smooth rim, and his lips curved into a nearly imperceptible smile.

 

Alphinaud realized only then the mission that his heart had already set out upon. He would do whatever it took to see his friend smile, as often as he could manage it.

 

It was past noon already when they had finished their bathing and a light, inoffensive breakfast, and the older man had had his fill of pacing and light exercise. There was a strange sort of hurt at the breath of relief he sighed as the locks clicked closed. More than his sorrow, it spoke of wrongness, of reality twisted into things that should never, ever be.

 

Urianger had been more than willing to sit with the knight for a time. “Thou art welcome, always, to beseech mine aid,” the reclusive scholar had replied when Alphinaud had given the thanks he was due. “Not only for thine sake. A grieving spirit cannot be rebirthed when the heart hath ceased its fluttering. For one's soul to be nourished, one must attend, first, its mortal rest.” The gaunt Elezen lifted his hand briefly to the goggles that covered his eyes, which must surely have concealed a wellspring of grief.

 

Even when speaking, he gave the air of quiet, of dust and books that had not been disturbed for centuries. Urianger had been his grandfather's student, yes. But sometimes it seemed rather that he was merely a living manuscript, upon which was etched Louisoix's very wisdom. Alphinaud found it not a little disconcerting, were he to be perfectly honest. But his advice was sincere and hard-won, and the younger Elezen had merely bowed his head in thanks for his wisdom as well as his soup.

 

He had clearly been on to something when he had offered the broken knight a share of his dignity—had cared, in essence, for his mortal needs as well as those of his soul. And so it was in pursuit of a little more of it that he set off to toward Ul'dah on the back of a rented chocobo. Once there, he made his way toward the bustling market, casting his eyes about as he walked. Taking in every destitute refugee, wealthy patron, and ragamuffin adventurer with his keen analytical eyes. Looking for ideas and suggestions to the solution to his problem among the great variety of life gathered in the bustle of Pearl Lane, and finding... nothing.

 

Except Hikari. The warrior was rather hard to miss.

 

He had been standing among the stalls nearest the Quicksand, not shopping, merely staring off into space in deep contemplation. That in itself wouldn't have been that strange, nor the heavy furs and leather of the long-lost tribe of Warriors whose traditions he claimed to uphold. It was rather the hat he'd donned, a black shaggy thing that might merely have looked like a mop of unkempt hair save for the tall, ear-like protrusions on the top and the beady little eyes in the front. The adventurer looked like a Spriggan was attempting to eat his head.

 

It was some moments before Hikari had the presence of mind to notice Alphinaud standing a few yalms away, tilting his head in bemusement. But he finally did, delivering a careless wave of his hand and a gregarious grin. Beneath the Thanalan sun, his deep sapphire eyes had the audacity to _sparkle_. Alphinaud smiled back, if only because in the light of the adventurer's attention, it was sometimes impossible to do otherwise.

 

“Hey there,” said Hikari brightly. “I don't normally see you out here. Fancy some shopping?” Then, looking casually over his shoulder, he lowered his voice a touch and added, “how's our guest doing? Any better?”

 

The younger man had been attempting to assemble a snappy retort, but the thought of Aymeric knocked the wind out of him, physically, in a sudden huff. “I should _like_ to think so,” he said instead, crossing his arms and attempting to look unruffled and uninterested. “That's why I've come. I'm looking for some... suitable clothing. Nothing ostentatious, but comfortable and... dignified,” he hesitated to add. “Nothing strange.” He failed not to glance upward to the Spriggan that teetered atop the adventurer's head, grinning blankly at nothing and everything at once.

 

“Oh, of course. That's a _fantastic_ idea , might help him feel a bit more... normal. But it's a tall order,” said Hikari seriously, bringing his hand to his mouth and running his thumb along his lips. “I don't think you'll find anything that fits our requirements here. We'll have to go _bespoke_.” He wiggled his fingers expressively on the final word, an eloquent expression that Alphinaud could not _begin_ to divine the meaning of.

 

But it was certainly not good news, and his hopeful smile melted accordingly. He was counted as rich in some circles, but that didn't mean he had full access to his family's funds. What he had command of was largely invested in the Crystal Braves, and his sister's portion was inviolable. The rest was held in a trust for them both until they either married or reached the age of twenty-one. And while that was nearer than he sometimes felt, he shuddered to think of the terms that would go along with borrowing against it in a land ruled from the shadows by the Syndicate. He would go without food before pecking a morsel from their outstretched hands. He might, in fact, bite their fingers off instead.

 

“Hey, don't worry about it,” said the adventurer, turning up the heat on his grin to impossibly cheerful levels. He cocked his head subtly to the side, and the Spriggan's ears amplified the movement, springing to and fro with wild fervor. “I know some people. Meet me outside the Weaver's Guild in say, half an hour?”

 

In the unusual position of being offered a plan by the warrior he commanded, Alphinaud could only agree.

 

He left the adventurer to whatever deep thoughts he had been in the middle of pondering, opting instead to walk the length of the market and watch the customers as much as the products on display. Every new sort of outfit he found, he would imagine the wearer sprouting wings or a huge tail. The only clothes that seemed to work were the more scandalous outfits worn by women, which would have been a step down from nakedness, as far as Aymeric's dignity was concerned. Still, half a bell later he found himself waiting by the aetherite near the guild's entrance, swallowing his apprehension at the thought of attempting to talk his way into a contract with a craftsman whose services he could not afford, to make clothing for a client he could not describe.

 

“Ready to do this?” sounded a familiar voice, and Alphinaud turned from his perch against the wall to behold... a foppish dandy with an idiotic grin. Or more specifically, the Warrior of Light, wearing a ridiculously-tailored red suit. A long pair of tails ran down the back, and a tiny feathered top hat sat upon his head in place of the Spriggan from earlier.

 

And yet, this outfit seemed even more ridiculous than the last. “What in the name of Nymeia's wheel are you _wearing_?” asked Alphinaud, before he could check his tongue. Once he'd said it, there was hardly any point in apologizing, so he settled with half-heartedly hiding his grin behind his hand.

 

Hikari didn't take offense, his own grin sliding into sheepishness and back into joy like a wave breaking on the beach. “Got to look the part. It's important to dress how you want to be seen, you know, and this is no ordinary guild.” He gave Alphinaud a once-over with his canny eyes, amusement barely touching his features. “I have _no idea_ what that look says about _you_. But I'm sure we'll manage.”

 

“And you dress how you want to be seen, do you? All the time? Or do you represent yourself honestly, and only lie now?” It wasn't crossness with which he sniped back at the warrior, but rather disorientation and pride. He was not accustomed to being lectured save aught but Y'shtola, at least in recent memory.

 

“Both, of course,” replied Hikari with a loopy smile. “If you don't believe I can kill with style as well as an axe, that just shows how little you know about me.” And then he reached up to knock his hat just _slightly_ askance, and strolled gallantly down the steps.

 

Before he knew it, Alphinaud was face-to-face with Redolent Rose, legendary master of the Weaver's Guild and foremost name in taste in both the Sultanate and beyond.

 

Master Rose was a man of poise and dignity, despite or perhaps because of his heavy Roegedayn stature. He wore a similar tailcoat to Hikari's, in tasteful tones of muted blue. It should have looked strange on him but instead it seemed to magnify him, giving him even more gravity and commanding presence. He was gray in complexion, and the lines of his face seemed pinched and drawn into perpetual condescension. When he saw the adventurer, however, his full lips broke into a generous smile, and he rushed forward to clasp the adventurer's hand like an equal. “Ah, my young protégé, how lovely to see you! You are looking excellent, as ever. Keeping up your skills, are you? Turning heads on the Avenue?” His voice was rich and expressive, rising and dipping smoothly like chocolate poured over a bowl of truffles, sinking deep into every crevice.

 

“Of course,” said the warrior in the tailored suit. “You know me, I like to make a statement. And you're looking fantastic as usual. Glad to see Ul'dah's pampered rich haven't driven you to an early grave _yet_.”

 

The rueful grin the Master Weaver returned suggested the early grave might be just around the corner. “Oh, not yet, not _yet_. I live to _serve_. Should I die in the service of my art, why, I think I should merely stitch myself back together as I wear out along the seams. And speaking of service, who might this be? Have I the honor of meeting a client?” He turned abruptly to Alphinaud and looked him over so discreetly he could nearly have missed it, a quick flick of the eyes and a subtle twitch of his bland smile the only sign of whatever complex appraisal he was performing. And yet, for a brief instant, the young diplomat felt as if his entire soul were on display. As if the Roegedayn's rapt attention were a spotlight shining out of the dark, lighting him up to see for malms around.

 

Before he could stammer an introduction, his adventurer answered for him. “Yes, in a manner of speaking,” he said cryptically. “Master, I would like to introduce Alphinaud Leveilleur, a dear friend of mine. Alphinaud, this is Guildmaster Redolent Rose. There is no designer in Eorzea more capable of creating what we need. He's a creative genius, and he's satisfied with nothing less than _perfection_. Everything he makes comes straight from his heart, so don't let him fool you into thinking he hasn't got one.” He snapped suddenly into a playful grin, lop-sided and sharp at the edges.

 

The weaver was halfway through a second discreet appraisal, perhaps recognizing the name though he gave little sign of it. But he flushed a pale shade of mauve when he heard the adventurer's effusive praise. Obviously the guildmaster needed no introduction, and he was derailed momentarily by the need to remove himself from the spotlight. “Nonsense,” he cooed, smoothing down the front of his suit and fussing with his cuff-links in turn. “You are generous to a fault, Hikari, most of all with your praise. I am merely a _servant_. A midwife of dreams, if you will. In such distinguished company, I am hardly as a star in the shadow of the greater moon,” he said, inclining his head respectfully toward the young Elezen.

 

Ah, so the guildmaster had recognized his name. It irked Alphinaud sometimes to be forced to rely upon it, but it had its advantages. It was sometimes easier to work oneself down from an over-high opinion than up from an underestimation. “I am not my grandfather, Guildmaster,” he said, adopting humility as a pose but keeping his head held high. “My own achievements hardly merit such praise. It is rather a great honor to meet the man who commands Eorzea's cultural revolutions. No corner of the land is ignorant of your reputation, nor lacking in praise for your art.”

 

The impish curl of the weaver's pursed lips told the young Elezen that he would not be on the receiving end of any more appraisals, no matter how discreet. “You flatter me, Master Leveilleur, but it will get you _everywhere_ ,” he said with a deep bow. “How may I be of service to my dear protégé and his distinguished friend?” He looked between them brightly, no longer so penetrating, but a trifle too hopeful. It occurred to Alphinaud that he might be thinking of them as the wrong sort of friends, and it was all he could do to keep his own smile bland and inoffensive, rather than curling like a clock-spring and rebounding to launch the gears of his dignity across the guild floor.

 

Hikari took up the charge once again, while the younger man struggled with his words and his composure. “Not for us, Master. For a... visiting diplomat, you might say. A challenge. Something unusual, and very hush-hush.” Hikari had curled his fist beneath his chin as if in thought, and there was a sparkle in his eyes, of mischief or anticipation or, Alphinaud might have thought at any other time, a thirst for blood. “He's tall, like an Elezen in build. But—while I can't give you specifics—we need to leave his back uncovered, and he has a large tail. We need something simple but elegant, which gives him a good range of movement and comfort. It also needs to be easy to get in and out of, even with his unusual features. He's used to fine craftsmanship, but values function over form. A nice shirt and trousers should do. And maybe a heavy cloak, for colder climates.”

 

“A visiting dignitary? Perhaps one of the fabled people of the Far East? What a _fine_ opportunity to display our art and innovation,” mused the guildmaster, eyes already dancing to and fro as he visualized. “Yes, of course, you may count on my discretion. Sunsilk Tapestries would not be Eorzea's foremost supplier of fine raiment if we spoke about our esteemed clients to all and sundry!” He allowed himself a small chuckle, but his mind was clearly elsewhere, an elbow cradled in his hand as he gestured invisible diagrams in the air. “You have his measurements? For such a diverting challenge, I should like to begin work at once—with your assistance, of course, Hikari.”

 

The answer was no, but the adventurer nodded anyway. “I can have them to you by the end of the afternoon. I can also tell you he looks _amazing_ in jet black and royal blue.” And then he winked, the cheeky thing, and the guildmaster's grin lit up like a Starlight tree, and Alphinaud was very glad then not to have to say anything at all.


End file.
